240 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



the stage, or take ofF the mat, or otherwise let them enjoy full day- 

 light. Three days will generally suffice ; but if they have had a 

 long journey, and the weather is cold, give them a week of quiet to 

 recover. The first two days of enjoying full daylight, shade them 

 from the sun during midday hours, and on no account ever repot 

 plants immediately after receiving them, unless you Jcnow that they 

 have been long established in the pots, and have been hardened by 

 exposure to the open air. It is a good rule to have duplicates of 

 all choice plants — never to trust to one of each. Very few people 

 would have the courage to pick off the bloom-buds from a lot of 

 new pansies or pelargoniums at five shillings each ; they would let 

 the first blooms open while the plants were weak, and then say they 

 had paid their money for rubbish. AVhen the plants have gained 

 their proper strength, the blooms will have their proper character, 

 and no plant can produce blooms true to its reputation until it has 

 stored up, by free leaf-growth, a certain amount of pulp, and acquired 

 thereby a sturdiness of character. S. H. 



CULTIVATION OF EHUBARB. 



jHIS important vegetable is one of the many good things 

 that ordinarily take such good care of themselves that 

 it really obtains, in many gardens, less attention than 

 it requires and deserves. In many instances, of course, 

 it is a mere weed of the garden, that may prosper or 

 perish for all the owner cares ; for some good folks care but little 

 for it in any shape or at any time, while not far off, perhaps, we 

 may find those who esteem it highly, and would be glad to secure 

 the best sorts and grow them in the best way to secure a full enjoy- 

 ment of the various uses to which the plant may be put. Our own 

 collection of rhubarbs comprises twenty sorts, and they difler con- 

 siderably in relative value, and especially in the one important point 

 of early growth ; for those that grow earliest are the most to be 

 desired, and as a rule they are the smallest, most highly coloured, 

 and most delicately flavoured, and are of great service in the house- 

 hold in the early spring days, when the store of preserves is running 

 low, and the largest of gooseberries are still too small to make 

 insipid tarts. But the later and more robust growing varieties have 

 their uses, for, to begin with, some people use rhubarb as a substi- 

 tute for fruit in tarts all the summer long, while for preserving and 

 wine making, the late kinds are much to be preferred, for they afford 

 large supplies, while the early and very delicately flavoured kinds do 

 not. 



Raising feom Seed is a very simple business, but it will never 

 pay the amateur unless he has some special object in view, such as 

 the improvement of the varieties in flavour, earliness, productiveness, 

 or some other desirable quality. In the month of July the seed may 

 be obtained in plenty where the plants have been allowed to flower, 

 and it should be gathered as early as possible, to insure ripeness, 



