THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



197 



and the air being dry, with plenty of sun, 

 they wholly escaped mildew, as long as 

 they were in the windows. 



When that disease appeared on any of 

 those in the pit, they were taken up, washed 

 with a strong solution of soft soap and 

 water, and afterwards, when the soap was 

 washed off, which was done almost imme- 

 diately, dusted with sulphur. They were 

 then put in the windows in place of some of 

 those already there, which in their turn 

 were transferred to the pit outside. Twice 

 only tins had to be done with half a dozen 

 pots of verbenas, and the whole stock of 

 that plant washed once for green-fly. In 

 both cases the process was entirely effec- 

 tual ; but had I known a convenient mode 

 of thoroughly damping the leaves and stems 

 of the plants before applying the sulphur, 

 I would not have gone to the trouble of 

 washing them for mildew alone, as the 

 application of sulphur to the dump foliage 

 would, I believe, have been a sufficient 

 remedy for that. 



The comparative freedom of the ver- 

 benas from mildew, which destroyed nearly 

 all my stock of them last year, and of the 

 whole stock from vermiu, is, perhaps, to be 

 attributed to two causes. First, the plants 

 were not packed as closely together as 

 could be done without touching. On the 

 contrary, care was taken to leave a clear 

 space of a couple of inches, at least, be- 

 tween the outermost leaves of each pot of 

 plants. That this was serviceable was 

 shown by the fact that the plants in the 

 corners of the pit, and those which were 

 crowded together in the pots, were always 

 the first to suffer. Secondly, all the air 

 that could possibly be given was given ; 

 that is, the lights were taken off entirely 

 whenever there was not either actual frost 

 or rain. In the latter case, they were 

 frequently rested at all four corners upon 

 biicks, so that a free current of air blew 

 underneath. 



Having formerly found that verbenas 

 kept well three in a pot, up to planting- 

 out time, and afterwards turned out well, 

 I intend to keep the whole of them, this 

 year, in the same way up to that period. 

 The calceolarias and cinerarias I dare not 

 treat thus. The first were carefully potted 

 off early in March, when room was made 

 by turning out some cauliflowers, and 

 shifted since ; the second have been shifted 

 whenever they required it, in order to 

 avoid a visitation of green-fly and red 

 spider, of both of winch pot-bound cine- 

 rarias and calceolarias have given me some 

 very unpleasant experience. 



I may add, that those verbenas which 



were dusted with sulphur, were allowed 

 to remain with it on during the winter. 

 They appeared to receive no injury from 

 this, and were not attacked with green-fly 

 as those alongside of them without any 

 sulphur on the leaves were. 



Among the variegated geraniums some 

 loss occurred. When they appeared to be 

 suffering, after the frost of December, they 

 were removed to the house, to a room 

 having a north aspect, and a tolerably dry 

 air, but no sun. Here they did very well, 

 both old and young plants, till the begin- 

 ning of March, losing all their lower leaves 

 certainly, but remaining otherwise strong 

 ami healthy. At that time they were 

 transferred to the pit, when every one of 

 the young plants, and most of the old ones, 

 died. Their sojourn in the house appeared 

 to have rendered them even less able to 

 stand a damper atmosphere than when 

 they were in it from the first. It is im- 

 portant for amateurs to remember that the 

 atmosphere of dwelling houses is much 

 drier than that of pits and greenhouses, 

 and variegated geraniums should, there- 

 fore, be in pots at least four inches in 

 diameter, larger if possible, to prevent 

 undue exhaustion, when kept in windows. 

 Another time I would wait tdl the middle 

 of April to take them out, or even the end 

 of that month, if the weather was cold. 



It is worthy of remark, that Kinghorn's 

 Attraction, and Golden Chain, can be safely 

 kept, except in frost, in a room without 

 lire-heat, and with a north aspect, where 

 verbenas will not live ; this was proved to 

 be the case a previous winter. Verbenas 

 must have sun. 



The pit spoken of is a turf one, made 

 according to the directions in the first 

 uumber of the Floral Would, except 

 that the walls are nine inches lower all 

 round. It is covered with calico lights, 

 which, as I have previously said, are easily 

 made by oiling calico with common unboiled 

 oil, and putting them to dry in the air. 

 The bottom is a foot beneath the surface, 

 and filled up to the level of that with coal 

 ashes, to plunge the pots in. The expe- 

 rience of the past winter showed, however, 

 that moisture soaking into the pit made 

 the bottom most injuriously damp, although 

 it was on the slope of a hill, and provision 

 had been made, to a certain degree, for 

 drainage, by constructing small drains 

 from the bottom of each light tinder the 

 front wall. Taking a hint, therefore, from 

 W. AnselPs directions for the management 

 of bedding plants, at page 227, in the 

 second .volume of the Floral World, I 

 got the bottom cleared out, three inches of 



