210 



THE FLORIST. 



lower two-thirds of my height were placed firmly under the soil. The 

 pot was then removed to a frame, with a gentle bottom-heat, and 

 plunged to the rim in sawdust. For the first few days I suffered 

 greatly, owing to my old sources of nourishment being cut off, and 

 having as yet no power of appropriating the new ones at my dis- 

 posal. I am sure if my master had not exercised the greatest care 

 and watchfulness over me, 1 must have died; and I resolved, if I re- 

 covered, to shew my gratitude, by throwing blossoms and odours 

 around his dwelling all my life. He kept a tank of warm-water 

 flowing beneath me night and day, by which means not only was 

 the soil in which I was placed made warm and comfortable, but a 



moisture rose and adhered 

 to the under-sides of my leaf, 

 which proved peculiarly re- 

 freshing. Whenever the sun 

 burst upon me, threatening 

 in my then state to exhaust 

 me of my juices, he ran with 

 a mat to afford me shade; 

 and he further refreshed me 

 morning and evening with 

 a dew-like shower, thrown 

 through a fine-rosed syringe. In about eight days the juices exuding 

 from the top and bottom of my stem had formed a callous; and a 

 few days later white porous roots began to form, with sponge-like 

 points, "that sucked up the moisture from the soil, and I felt my 

 almost exhausted strength rapidly recruiting. My master now al- 

 lowed a little sun to fall on my leaf in the morning, and admitted a 

 little air into the frame in which I had been closely shut for a fort- 

 night. By this treatment my strength became so great, and my 

 roots spread so rapidly, that the eye in the axil of my leaf began to 

 grow, and I was shaken out of the cutting-pot and placed in a pot of 

 the same size by myself, in a soil something similar, but with de- 

 cayed manure instead of leaf-mould, and about one-fourth the quan- 

 tity of sand. I was here separated from my companions, one of 

 whom had died a cutting, not having been sufficiently ripe when 

 taken ; one had not yet rooted, having been too ripe ; and the fourth 

 was placed in a separate pot, like myself. I was now carried back 

 to a frame with bottom-heat, syringed with water morning and 

 evening, and shaded from the sun as before. For the first two or 

 three days very little air was admitted; but after that time more 

 and more was given every day, the shade was made lighter by de- 

 grees, till at last the frame was entirely removed, and I was exposed 

 to the sun and air night and day. It was now July, and the grow- 

 ing season was before me ; my first anxiety was to shew my grati- 

 tude to my master, and being of the kind called " autumnal," by 

 the third week of September I produced three, not over-large, but 

 finely-shaped and highly- coloured flowers. 



As the nursery in which I grew was much visited by lovers of 

 flowers, I heard many high encomiums passed on me ; and one even- 



