147 

 THE NEAPOLITAN VIOLET. 



BT ME. JAMES BARNES, OF BICTON. 



[T the middle of April, or thereabouts, this favourite but 

 rarely well-grown violet will have finished flowering, 

 and the time will have arrived to see about next season's 

 stock of plants. Runners are thrown out then all round 

 the old blooming plants. Procure some healthy sweet 

 soil, pretty open and sandy, and cast it all over your bed of 

 Neapolitans ; then take a broom, or your fiugers, and work it in 

 amongst them. This should be done when they are dry, in order 

 that the soil may slip or run down amongst and between their 

 foliage, and not smother them. Then, if rain is not at hand, water 

 well down with a coarse-rosed water-pot. In this way the young 

 shoots soon begin to root round the parent stem. If the weather 

 turns out hot and dry, we at once stick in and about some green 

 boughs, afoot or eighteen inches in height, to partially shade them; 

 for violets do not like hot and parching summer sun, it subjects 

 them to red spider, etc. Keep them well watered if the weather 

 does not prove showery, and water should be applied only in the 

 evenings, after the sun has gone behind the trees, or on cloudy 

 mornings, or mildew will result. In about eighteen or twenty days 

 those ruuners will be well rooted. Pork them out, and select only 

 the well-rooted, cleanest, and strongest of the young plants, casting 

 the old and weak young plants away. Then plant any quantity 

 you like of the strong young ones on well- prepared ground in a 

 north or shady aspect, one foot apart ; keep them clear ail the 

 summer by frequent hoeings, and cut off all side-runners ; and of 

 course, if long drought sets in, their progress will be assisted by 

 giving a good dose of water now and then, but not by often 

 sprinkling driblets, which is pretty sure to produce mildew. By 

 October they will be robust, sturdy plants, showing abundance of 

 bloom. They are then ready to take up and remove to the sunny 

 side of the hedge, into pits, frames, or some nice warm place or 

 corner. Por our early or iirst-crop flowers, we have common turf- 

 built pits, into which we cast eighteen or twenty inches of fermenting 

 materials, such as decayed leaves, etc., etc. This produces a gentle, 

 genial warmth, and good drainage, and on to this is placed six or 

 eight inches of healthy sweet soil. The plants are then taken up 

 from their summer quarters, carefully and quickly, with balls of 

 earth, and placed regularly all over, according to size and foliage, 

 so that they nearly touch each other. The distance is generally 

 from nine to twelve inches apart, and glass lights are at once placed 

 over them. It is astonishing how soon they get established, and 

 thrive and blossom, with such beautiful large blooms, and nice 

 green shining foliage. The lights are always drawn ofi" in suitable 

 weather all the winter through, and free air given at other times. 

 It is the lack of it that produces damping mildew, etc. : keep them 



