Chrysanthemums. 335 



The very first requisite of success is to cherish an ideal ! Some one 

 of at least four different objects must be clearly conceived at the start 

 and kept in view till the very end. 



1. Do you want a few large flowers such as you see at the shows? 

 Then you can have only one stem in a flower pot and only one flower 

 on that stem (figure 175), and you must have pots of various sizes up 

 to six or eight inches in diameter at the rim. Pinch off the young 

 shoots as soon as they show themselves, so that the plant can never 

 branch. If you are successful, you will have the beauty of an indi- 

 vidual object. It will be a wonderful thing and may not fit in with 

 anything else, but will demand attention for itself alone. Remember 

 that size alone is vulgar, and that, the delicate and fanciful may be 

 made gross and characterless by over-feeding. 



2. Do you wish enough size of flower so that you can recognize 

 the variety, and are you wilhng to sacrifice somewhat in point of 

 numbers ? Then you had better aim to produce about four flowers to 

 every plant, each flower six inches in diameter, and with only one 

 flower on each branch. These branches should be as long as possible 

 and therefore you should pinch out the central shoot of the young 

 plant when it is five or six inches above the soil and make it branch. 

 Teach it to cherish a high ideal — the ideal of four fine flowers, each 

 at the top of a long branch. On the whole, this is the best method 

 for the home window, and, with practice, from three to six large char- 

 acteristic flowers may be grown in a six- inch flower pot. 



3. Would you like a handsome, symmetrical, bushy plant with 

 twenty or more flowers ? Don't try it expecting great success with 

 httle care. The flowers will be small, sometimes partially developed, 

 and so lacking in character that you can scarcely ever tell the variety. 

 It also takes too much tying and training and disbudding, and the 

 result is more or less artificial and has no artistic value except for 

 mass effect. Skilled gardeners can do it, but it costs more time than 

 most people can give. The plants must be started early, fed with 

 great care and must be shifted successively from small-sized flower 

 pots to those of eight to ten inches at least. The English gardeners 

 are far more skillful than we in such work, and it is not uncommon to 

 see pictures of plants with from 50 to 300 large, well-formed blooms upon 



