IS THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



recommend the growers to turn the plants round, so as to prevent 

 those of a shrubby kind from acquiring a flat shape : this should 

 not be practised as a matter of course. Slow-growing herbaceous 

 plants, such as primulas and auriculas, hyacinths and tulips, must 

 be kept equally balanced by occasional turning ; their outlines do 

 not admit of forming a face to the light, and, unless turned, their 

 flower stems will bend over, and have an unsightly appearance. 

 Bat camellias, and other shrubby plants, might be allowed to form 

 a face to the light with advantage ; when in bloom, they can be 

 reversed in the evening, so as to display their full beauty in artificial 

 light, and be returned next morning to grow in their own way. 

 There are no colours among flowers so charming at night as white, 

 lilac, and crimson ; yellow and blue are not readily distinguishable; 

 hence, for decorating a room in winter and spring camellias and 

 primulas are unequalled. 



The akt of Buti>'G Plants. — Thousands of pounds are annually 

 expended in London in the purchase of window flowers, and perhaps 

 sixty per cent, of the money is wasted.* The plants are generally 

 worth what is paid for them ; but they are unsuitable for the pur- 

 poses to which they are put, and numbers of them perish a few 

 days after taking the places assigned them. The pretty genistas, 

 calceolarias, geraniums, and ericas, that hawkers carry about in the 

 months of February and March, have just left snug forcing 

 houses^ and are already chilled by their untimely exposure for sale. 

 To furbish up a warm greenhouse they may occasionally be 

 useful, but the people who buy them are rarely able to keep them 

 alive more than a few days, simply because it requires more skill and 

 better appliances than they possess to do so. Experienced growers 

 never buy plants of hawkers ; though it must be admitted, injustice 

 to those poor men, that they lay the foundation, by the sale of a 

 sixpenny plant, for the love of floriculture in many a home ; and if 

 the windows are made gay with their sparkling flowers for a few 

 days or a week, the pleasure is not dearly purchased. The worst of 

 peripatetic trading is, that the purchaser has no guarantee and no 

 remedy. A nurseryman will not stoop to the trick of potting 

 stocks in full bloom from the open ground, knowing that in a few 

 hours the fraud will be discovered ; but a hawker will make up a 

 grand basket of stocks and asters that have been stuck in the pots 

 only an hour ; and the purchasers grumble to their hearts' content 

 when he is out of sight and out of hearing. It is not a good plan 

 to buy plants in full bloom at any season, unless they are wanted 

 only for a temporary purpose. An expenditure of a few shillings in 

 hawkers' plants will make an entrance-hall or window very gay for a 

 few hours, or a day 'or two ; but those who want to keep the plants 

 should buy them when just coming into bloom : then, if placed in a 

 cooler air than they have had previously, the chances are that it will 

 only delay, not destroy the bloom, and you have the whole enjoy- 

 ment to come ; whereas, wlien in full bloom, the greater part of the 

 beauty is already gone. In the case of pelargoniums, camellias, and 



* Perhaps we are wrong here. If the plants live but an hour, the pnrchascr 

 may derive pleasure from them far in excess of their cost. 



