provement. It does not follow that because we say, "Put four loads to a rod,” it must be advantageous. It is also to be borne in mind that we are advocates of spade labour, not because it gives employment merely, but because it lets air more freely into the soil, pulverizing it better, and, consequently, produces far better crops. We saw, however, a "digging machine," so called, in operation at Mechi's Tiptree Farm. This will be found very useful, although it should be called a forking machine. It tears up the ground well, about eight inches in depth; but it requires from four to five good strong horses to work it, whereas men could do it better, if not quicker, and the ground would not be rammed together with the trampling of heavy horses and the weight of iron they have to drag. On some lands a fork would be better than a spade, and just as good for the crops; but to small farmers, cottagers, and allotment-holders, manual labour is the most convenient, as well as most profitable. With regard to the difficulties attending the dependence on manual labour, the worst is the slow progress of the work as compared with what can be accomplished with machinery. A plough, harrow, sowing-machine, and roller, can accomplish a good deal in a day, and a fine day can be often caught in the country. Manual labour is slow, but a man need not dig all before he sows any. On the contrary, the best policy is to sow as he goes on. Say he digs but a single land; let him sow it before he digs another; complete all operations as we go on. Then, again, a man having a neighbour in the same predicament with himself, they learn to help one another. A assists B to-day, and rids one of his jobs completely; B helps A the next day, and thus both are much benefited. There are many jobs that two men can do in much less than half the time that one would be at it, and would do it better also. This kind of feeling should be cultivated as much as possible; there is no knowing the extent to which real advantages could be secured by all, if the system of helping one another were carried out. We have seen among allotment holders four or five busily employed on one man's holding, and another day the same men at work on another. By this means many things which would hang heavily on one man's hand are done quickly, and the very "change of work is a holiday."

Upon the subject of crops and stock, the book is equally plain and comprehensive, and very few words are lost. The object appears to have been to get as much information as possible into a very small space, and we shall give here the chapter on cropping the ground:--

"Whether a man intends to use all his produce at home, or sell a surplus, must depend ou his means, his quantity of land, and other circumstances; but he should cultivate those crops which are always saleable, but which are not perishable, in preference to any thing that must be hurried into the market. Grain, beans, potatoes, mangoldwurzel, carrots, down to any thing that will keep for a time cannot come amiss; but green crops must be carefully adopted in only such quantities as can be used, and we recommend spade labour in preference to the best ploughing, so far as it can be carried out. In planting or sowing we do not like waiting till the entire piece be dry, but dig in strips, and as soon as a strip is dug and prepared, sow or plant it. There may be ten days or a fortnight perhaps between the first and last planting of potatoes or sowing of mangoldwurzel, but the crop on the average will be none the worse for it. We admit that it is very desirable when it can be accomplished, to take advantage of weather by rapid operations, and that once now and then a man may, with advantage to himself and not much injury to the crop, obtain the loan of a plough, but let this be only occasionally, not the rule, but the exception; he will soon discover the difference between the crops after the plough and those after the spade. In dressing the ground he must bear in mind that liquid manure is very superior to the most rotten muck, and therefore he should provide himself with the best means of using it to the best advantage. A

tub on wheels or in a barrow, is the most simple, by a taphole at the side close to the bottom he can let out the liquid; but it would be too sudden unless checked or distributed by some means. A contrivance like the rose of a water pot will do, but the best is a hollow pipe full of holes, which may be made to distribute the liquid a width of two feet so far as it goes, and a plug to withdraw and let go the liquid as soon as it arrives where it is to begin. A water-cart is handy, but a regular full-sized butt, lying on two wheels, with a wooden trough behind to receive the liquid from the butt and distribute it through holes bored all the length, is better than anything if you have cattle to draw it. Still, with limited means, a man may perhaps compass nothing more than a tub and barrow. It may be worth mentioning, too, that laborious as it may be to manure the ground this way, the crops will more than compensate for the trouble and labour. If you have an abundant supply, be not afraid of overdoing the land. The more fertilizing liquid it has, the more abundant will be your crops. In selecting your crops, then, first provide for the live stock you intend to keep, and feed everything at home. A cow will yield more milk when well housed than she will on the best pasture, while the dung is easily preserved. For her use you must provide the necessary quantity of greenmeat, mangoldwurzel, carrots, swedes, clover, or hay. If you keep one or more pigs, provide accordingly, and do not omit plenty of potatoes. If you keep fowls, turkeys, ducks, geese, pigeons, find a piece of ground for the production of the things you require. Having made allowance for all these, or for whatever you are likely to consume, let the rest of your crops be saleable and not perishable for all the perishable crops must be sold at the market price however unfavourable, whereas if a crop will keep, you need not be driven to sell under disadvantages. In giving a sort of calendar for the operations of farming, we desire that each one who reads should only attend to what concerns him. Use that portion only that relates to his own affair. If we say "sow turnips," we do not mean that a man who wants something else a good deal more than turnips should nevertheless attend to us; but, that those only who want turnip crops should know that it is a proper time to sow them. Perhaps in all the calendar not half a dozen directions may apply to while two-thirds of them may be useful to another, and perhaps all of them may be to a few. Before, however,

one man,

we enter on the calendar, we should offer a few remarks on farmer." particular crops, especially those which concern the small

We have given enough to show the nature of the work, and have merely to observe that there is a practical lesson upon all the crops and animals that can be managed on a genuine English farm.

THE MANAGEMENT OF MELON-SHAPED CACTI. THE old notions about the necessity of growing this interesting tribe of plants in brick rubbish, or poor soil, has, of late years, been exploded by the number of experiments which have been tried by the numerous growers, who, having no particular directions for their culture, have taken their own means of advancing their growth. For instance, when Hungerford Market, some years ago, was the scene of barter and sale of endless varieties, brought by some foreigners from the Brazils and South America, they were lotted in quantities comprising many different kinds; and these lots were picked up by young and old cultivators, who treated them all manner of ways; and I happened to see the culture of four different individuals, three of whom comparatively failed, while the fourth succeeded beyond all my expectations. The three who failed, by comparison, potted their novelties in the poor soil, composed of brick rubbish and other matter, void of what is called richness or manure of any kind, and planted them in different positions; the one using a conservatory, which, having occasionally stove plants in it, was kept up to a temperature of what would be called a warm green-house ;

two others treated the strangers as subjects which required a constant eye, and so used their propagating houses. The fourth potted them in rich compost; that is to say, the loam from rotted turfs, and melon-bed dung turned to mould, in equal quantities, and placed them at once into bottom heat. in a regular stove. Here they started into rapid growth, and were kept moist. In less than one year they had nearly doubled their size, while none of the other three had made much progress, and had lost several. Seed which were found active in two or three of the species were sown at the time the old plants were potted, and treated in the same way, with bottom heat, rich compost, and stove temperature. At the resting season, the old ones were placed on shelves, and watered no more. When they indicated fresh growth, they were repotted in larger-sized pots, and the roots were found, on their removal, to have filled the originals. These were again placed in bottom heat,-that is to say, plunged into the tan which had been made up for pines,-and again grew rapidly, under the same management as before. With this treatment, they soon made handsome specimens, and were dispersed among collectors at high prices. Some other specimens, belonging to the other growers, were even the third season in their original pots, and had made as little, and in some cases not so much, progress as those under stove treatment had in the first. With some difficulty, one of the three parties was induced to adopt stove treatment, to shake out the old poor stuff, and put them into better, following, under advice, the successful treatment spoken of; and they advanced more in six weeks, or two months, than they had in the three seasons altogether. Nor were there any exceptions; but the two or three specimens (duplicates of some parted with) left in the hands of the original stove-cultivator continued, of course, wonderfully in advance of the others, keeping the lead fully. From these facts, I come to the following conclusions:-First, that it is erroneous to suppose a Cactus requires poor soil; secondly, that the popular notions that they require little or no water only applies to two or three months in the whole year; thirdly, that, with heat and moisture corresponding, they can be grown almost as rapidly as any plant. It does not form part of this paper to go into the treatment of all Cacti; but I am quite sure they do better for heat and moisture and rich soil, while they are growing, and for the absence of moisture, when resting. The seedlings before mentioned were shifted from four or five in a pot to one in a thumb-pot, from that to a sixty, and successively to forty-eight and twenty-four, looking healthy and clean, in which state they were when I last saw them. I do not pretend that all melon-shaped Cacti (as they are called, but meaning the short kind) would succeed; but I have no doubt that all South American Cacti would, and

upon that principle would I recommend everybody to grow

them, whether old plants or from seed.*

REVIVAL OF THE AURICULA.

and had found to answer up to the present season, I was sure to be right in all I ventured to tell them about this beautiful flower, and having the last and present season produced a very interesting collection from seedlings by the same mode of cultivation that I practised in the year 1808, and recommended others to do in the first treatise I wrote; I exhibited a dozen speci

mens.

The ground I set out upon in my remarks was this: my object was to show that growing the Auricula with highly exciting compost was a mistake. That however it may cause rapid growth and sometimes fine development, it engendered disease, and was the means of producing what many who relied on books used to call "bad luck with their Auriculas."

I quoted from some of the old writers a few of their filthy recommendations, and assured the meeting that a dozen plants which I produced in rude health and bloom had been grown in a compost which I recommend to all amateur florists for nearly every florist's flower, namely, two-thirds loam from rotted turves, and one third dung rotted to mould. It was rather a curious coincidence that Mr. Holland forwarded a single plant of Auricula which was shown "for superior cultivation not for its flower," and the dozen by no means suffered by comparision for growth, they were strong and healthy and so was Mr. Holland's.

Among the points that I principally touched upon were, first that the Alps of Switzerland and parts of Germany were the original home of the flower-the old brown variety, Bear's-ear. The original Bear's-ear produced the Grand Present, and from the Grand Present and Bear's-car no doubt were produced all our fine varieties; for seed sown now, carelessly saved, will reproduce among others both these aboriginal varieties. I observed that the mountains of Switzerland will not give us an idea of very rich soil, yet all the old growers used and recommended the most exciting compost. I then described the Grand Present and Bear's-ear varieties and the four classes of green, grey, and white edges, and selfs.

Old florists were enthusiasts, and the establishment of shows the cause of emulation. Every body raised seedpresent collections are the pickings of all that have been lings, few succeeded in getting fine flowers, and our raised for 250 years.

There was no published properties of flowers until 1832, when I put forth the several articles under that title, since collected into a volume.

* I have not changed my opinion nor my practice, although the above remarks were written twenty years ago, but I may mention that although this tribe of plants flourish in heat they will bear cold to any amount short of frost, and that there are no subjects more interesting in a dwelling-house, for when established in their pots I have known them to go half a year without water.-G.

he knew nothing about what the flower should be, or would be, for he could not have contemplated edged flowers. It was natural that the white parts should be as wide all round as the tube was across, and the band of colour should be the same width as the paste or white round the tube, but although this would do for selfs it fails altogether for edged varieties.

Henry Stowe, of Colchester, was said to be the first grower of note, and he boasted of the number of pips he had produced on a plant. Gerard cultivated the Auricula and called it the Mountain Cowslip, and no doubt before any improvement was made upon the original species, for it was in 1597, only one year after

it was introduced.

Justin was a more practical florist and a general cultivator of florists' flowers, but we hear or read little of his improvements.

The Dutch obtained it of us like everything else they attempt, the Auricula became a very important article of merchandise, and they supplied us with it afterwards in great numbers. It is reasonable to suppose that they made the first improvement, that is, produced the first edged flowers: for it was not likely the English would be anxious to buy what they had already got; the natural inference is, that it was their improved varieties that the Dutch supplied us with, and not the common thing they had bought. The author of the "Florist's Directory was said to have been a good grower; I doubt it, for, although his work is a very nicely got up thing his practice is very much against him, if we have only his book to judge from. In our own day we have had many successful growers, Goldham, Jeffries, Smith, Lawrence, Goepel, Hayward, Wilmer, Dickson, Hill Groom, Gable, Miller, and others equally enthusiastic and lions of cultivation round the outskirts of town.

The enthusiasm of the best men was great; Gable of the City Road, has travelled from London to Dulwich with his Auriculas in two boxes hanging like milk-pails to a yoke. When shows were approaching, and many poor men used to exhibit, I have known the blankets to be taken off the bed, to cover up the flower on which success depended. There were florists in those days, not a jot more honest than some are now; the tricks among exhibitors quite as ugly; for instance, I have known a man to take off the top pip of a Privateer which always comes out early and fades first, and replace it with a pip taken from another plant. With the help of a little gum it will stand on and last quite long enough for the show; and I have seen old Gable pull three Carnations to pieces, and with the best of the petals, make a flower far surpassing any specimen grown. I have known an old shower when he saw he was beaten, break the stem of his rival's flower. At the period I speak of there were shows all round London. The Greyhound, Dulwich, the Queen's Head, Finchley, a house of great resort, afterwards burned down and replaced by an immense gin palace that nobody visited, and now turned into some public institution; the Britannia, in the Britannia Fields, and others east, west, north, and south. Why has the flower been abandoned? One cause, no doubt, was the growers being hunted out of their homes; gardens have gone by hundreds to be cropped with bricks and mortar; but another and far more tangible cause, was the idleness of amateurs. Pansies and other flowers were less troublesome than Auriculas, and had prizes as great. Pinks, Carnations and Auriculas had to give way to Pansies and Dahlias, which only wanted planting.

Most of these growers mentioned are dead, and the difficulties raised by the old writers made many a lover of the flower leave it alone, frightened at the trouble even of getting the stuff to grow them in.

The most taking work of the day, was Maddocks "Florist's Directory." Well, he gave the following task to begin with, before anybody could even get the plants. Imagine a quiet man fond of his garden, admiring and wanting to grow the flower he must get, one half rotten cow-dung from the country (the Cockney cows' dirt was not clean enough), and that from the country must be two years old; one-sixth part sound earth of an open

texture; one-eighth part earth of rotten leaves; onetwelth sea or river sand; one-twenty-fourth soft decayed willow wood; one-twenty-fourth peaty or moory earth; one-twenty-fourth ashes of burned vegetables. All this to be mixed and exposed a year in the open air before it is to be used. So much for Maddock's encouragement to young beginners. Not one man in a thousand would for the sake of a flower that only blooms a fortnight in the year take the trouble to collect it. Maddocks has deterred many from attempting the Auricula, and he was not the worst: there are worse than he is.

Emmerton, who says "good compost is the food, the very life of the Auricula," gives quite as much trouble and is twice as nasty. Imagine a lady desirous of growing this, which is more than any other a lady's flower. The author gives her a delicate job to begin with. Take two barrows full of goose dung steeped in blood from butchers, two barrows full of sugar-baker's scum, two barrows full of loam, and two barrows full of night soil. These are to be mixed up in a hole the first year, the next year, the stinking mixture is to be turned over every month in an open exposed situation, so that it may be frozen all through during the winter to sweeten it.

How many hundreds of even enthusiasts would shrink from this pretty job, although the author says it will throw brilliant colours into the flowers.

P. Kenny was not quite so nasty. Sheep's blood, poultry dung, loam, sheep's dung and hay litter were the ingredients he used, and he gave directions. Now this sort of quackery was not calculated to make Auricula growers, and it may be taken for granted that when very exciting compost is used, the grower is always in danger, for plants are something like human beings. The man who lives high and drinks hard, may be stopped in his career by apoplexy, and is a sorry subject when accident or a severe cold lays him up, such a man will succumb to it in spite of doctors, when the steady going moderate liver is easily saved. I have heard at the hospitals that the worst patients they have under accident are brewer's draymen, who for the most part drink an enormous quantity of beer and eat but little.

Plants grown in strong compost and in a state of excitement, take cold as readily as one of ourselves, they are naturally tender and liable to damage by a draught of air, or a sudden chill, too much water or too little, being too warm or too cold, they soon sicken, and are difficult to bring round again. I have known those, who, without being so filthy as Maddock, Kenny, or Emmerton, have, nevertheless, used night soil and poultry dung, and have lost whole collections by over excitement. A banker whose name 1 forget, but he was a member of the Metropolitan Society, who determined to grow Auriculas well, and beat everybody; he bought a fine collection, and employed an old grower to superintend them. This grower used night soil, and the whole were sacrificed in a few months.

I began Auricula growing in 1805, when old Gable, of the City Road, was in his glory. I had heard that the florists played all sorts of tricks with plants, and managed that they should die in a few weeks by potting them in stuff that would kill them. I was set up with half-a-dozen by a gentleman who told me if I bought any, to shake out all the soil, and pot them again in wholesome stuff. He used two pecks loam, and one peck leaf mould, and a

peck and a half of dung rotted to mould. I was successful with it, but there was a great difference in loam.

:

I built my first Auricula frame with turfs, cut as for a lawn; the sides, therefore, were a foot thick, that being the width of the turf; by the next year I managed to get a wooden frame, but in removing my old one I found it excellent loam, for the grass had nearly all rotted when my first stuff was all used I turned to my heap of rotted turfs, and in mixing I calculated that it was already two-thirds loam and one-third vegetable mould. I was well provided with dung from old melon beds, and I mixed three pecks of loam with a peck and a half of the dung which was rotted to mould. In this, and this only, did I grow my Auriculas, and from that time every florist's flower I grew. This very season I have a frame full of seedlings that have been potted in it, and they are as healthy as I wish to see Auriculas. I have recommended it in all my writings for nearly every florist's flower. The twelve specimens on the table have been in nothing else.

With regard to the danger of exciting composts, they always bring canker more or less. Wilmer, who was successful, and bloomed 1500 Auriculas, in an unlucky fit of ambition, used some kind of slop from the house, and spoiled the lot; it was grievous to see them canker one after the other till they were all gone. It is very likely that some little stimulant at the proper time may promote an increase of the size, but where it is used there is danger, and in nineteen cases out of twenty there is coarseness, which in the eye of a true florist is a fearful blot.

I have always protested against exciting compost. I have seen what has been called successful culture under these nostrums. I have seen the plants turned out, the compost shook from them, the bottom of the root, which is not unlike two or three inches of a horse radish, quite rotten, yellow and brown spots all the way up the tuber. certain signs of dissolution. I have seen every morsel of discolouration cut clean away with a sharp knife, and when that operation was performed scarcely a bit of the root left; and I have seen plants on an old woman's attic window growing all over the pot, capable of being divided into half a score plants, every heart blooming weakly, neglected for years, but the root as free from canker as it is possible to be found, and are proofs that health, strength, and a fine bloom can be produced by simple compost that can hurt nothing.

I then went into the culture of the plant, from the sowing of the seed to the perfection of the bloom, but it is too long for the present number, and the same as I have practised fifty-five years. The meeting was fully attended, Mr. Gordon in the chair, Mr. Wilson in the vice-chair, Mr. Courcha was announced for the next paper, on the Dahlia. Some of the gentlemen hinted that it was better to write a paper and read it, because it ought to be left with the Society. This is very well for persons who only know what they have read, but if a man be well grounded, and speaks from his own practical knowledge, he cannot mislead his audience, who must have more faith in what they hear. The greatest simpleton in the world could read a wise man's writing, and that is a very strong reason why in the lectures which I have frequently given, I have spoken, instead of reading a paper.

MR. GLENNY'S LITERARY LABOURS. CIRCUMSTANCES having arisen that render it very desirable that we should make a complete set of all our works, we should be very greatly obliged to any body who can assist us by them being out of print. The following is a list as near as we directing us where any portion can be obtained, a number of can recollect.

The Royal Ladies' Magazine. 6 vols. 8vo. 1829 to 1834. *Horticultural Journal. 6 vols. 1834 to 1839. *Gardener's Gazette (original Garden Newspaper). 1837 to 1860.

Gardener and Practical Florist. 3 vols. 1843 to 1845. Handbook to Flower Garden and Greenhouse. 1 vol. Second Edition.

Ditto to Fruit and Vegetable Garden. 1 vol. Original
Edition.

Ditto to Practical Gardening. 1 vol. Original Edition. Manual of Practical Gardening. 1 vol.

* 26 volumes of Garden Almanac. Gardener's Everyday Book. 1 vol.

26 vols.

Properties of Florist's Flowers and Plants. 1 vol.
Properties of Fruits and Vegetables. 1 vol.
Gardening for Children. 1 vol.
Culture of Popular Flowers. 1 vol.
Culture of Popular Fruits. 1 vol.

Catechism of Gardening for Schools. 1 vol.

Garden Forget-me-not; dedicated to Lady Rolle. 1 vol.
Companion to the Almanacs. 1 vol.

Angler's Almanac and Miscellany. 3 vols. 1853-4-5.
Handybook on Gardening. 1 vol.

Farming for the Million. 1 vol.

Annals of Horticulture, and Horticultural Magazine, in which we wrote the treatises on Florist's Flowers.

It may be of the greatest importance to us to get a complete set of those which are really original works, not vamped up from older authors or stolen from our contemporaries, and the greater part when first written by us had not been touched by

others. Those to which we have attached an asterisk are the most scarce, yet the thousands of copies published give us hope that we may be directed to persons who have them and will part from them. We shall feel greatly indebted to whoever can help us in this our object.-ED.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.

We do earnestly wish that Correspondents would attend to two or three conditions.-1. To address us at our own place, Dungannon House, Fulham. 2. To send a proper name and address, not for publication, but for our satisfaction, and that we may write an answer, instead of a delay of a month. B.-The annual advertiser will be presented gratis with the GARDENERS' GAZETTE, and also with the MIDLAND FLORIST, for June, and those who desire to advertise should communicate with us at once. We are much obliged by Indian seeds from "E. W. D.;" ten new American dahlias from Mr. Burgess; samples of peas, which we have just sown, from Mr. Turner, a gardener; dahlias from Mr. R; Polyanthuses from Mr. Craigie; seeds from Miss Thompson; a hamper containing eight sorts of potato for planting; and sundry seeds from Mr. Rilot; all very acceptable, and remind one of old times. POLYANTHUSES.--The general fault of this flower is the eye, more or less starry. The lacing round the edges and down the middle of the divisions not equal, and the fine divisions too perceptible. One or other of these faults seems nearly always to be present, but one or other is often absent in different flowers; we may hope to see a perfect flower in time. Tartarus is a fine dark flower, but the eye starry. Madonna is not so round a flower, but the eye is a perfect circle. Black Diamond has the best lacing, and is the best of the lot; and Silvester is smaller, but has the same rich lacing. Princess of Orange is a striking variety, the only fault in the colour is, that it is not well defined. Locksley, a fine bold flower, but rather too much indented; the garland is smail and pretty. It is a fine basket of seedlings, but we have noticed all we should care about.

NURSERIES TO LET.-These are generally advertised, but we always know, pretty well, who are on the move. "A Gardener in Want" will find two or three hundred pounds necessary.