20 THE FLOEAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



incli pots. In potting, great care should be taken to secure good drainage, 

 as, if well potted in the first instance, they may remain in the same pots 

 two or three years. They should be hrmly potted with the soil in tough 

 fibry lumps over the crocks, and the finer parts of the compost used to 

 fill in round the ball. Potting may be performed at any season, except 

 when the plants are in flower, but the best time to shift is immediately 

 after flowering is over, and when new growth is about to commence. If 

 the plants need a shift, then turn them out of the pots, lay them on the 

 potting-board, and remove with a pointed stick some of the old soil from 

 the outside and top of the ball, but so as to avoid damaging the roots, 

 which are generally found to form a close solid mass, with a few bundles 

 of fibres running down among the crocks. Having removed some of the 

 exhausted soil, they may be replaced in the same pots if the pots are not 

 altogether disproportionate to the size of the plants. In this case lay over 

 the crocks some lumps of turfy loam about the size of walnuts. Place 

 the plant in the pot, and fill in round the sides with a mixture of turf, 

 dung rotted to powder, and silver-sand, equal parts, and over the surface 

 of the ball spread an inch or so of the same mixture. After potting, 

 keep warm and shaded for a fortnight, and then place in an airy part of 

 the greenhouse. If shifted into larger pots they should never be more 

 than one size larger, as there is nothing gained by overpotting. We have 

 ourselves, indeed, more frequently had to shift specimen cytisuses into 

 larger pots, not because the roots required more room, but because the 

 plants had made such large heads that it became next to impossible to 

 keep them on their feet, and they were put into larger sizes to prevent them 

 falling about at the slightest touch, or breath of wind. When not 

 taken out of their pots, they should always be refreshed with a top-dressing 

 after the bloom is over in the spring. After the middle of May all this 

 class of plants may be turned out into cold pits, or on beds of coal-ashes ia 

 a shady and sheltered place. It is not well to plunge them, because they 

 are sure to root through the pots, but it is well also to guard against too 

 much action of the sun on the pots, which M'ill burn the roots, and 

 endanger the next season's bloom. As the new growth advances, r.ip it 

 in frequently; this will promote a dense bushy habit. Any branches 

 that grow in an unsightly manner should be cut clean back in May or 

 June, and if there is a large stock of plants, their heads may be clipped 

 into shape with a pair of shears to save the time of separate stopping. 

 There should be no stopping after the first week in August, and the plants 

 should then be placed where they will have full sunshine except at mid- 

 day, and, after a few weeks, may be placed whei'e the sun will shine fully 

 on them, Avhich will promote the ripening of the wood, and the setting of 

 the bloom for next season. Throughout the whole of the growing season 

 they must be liberally watered overhead, and at the root. 



Seedltkg Genistas. — All these seed freely, and the seedling plants 

 come generally true to their parents, even in the case of peculiar varieties. 

 The amateur cultivator will find it an agreeable recreation to raise seed- 

 ling stock of the choicer kinds of cytisus and genista, and there will al- 

 ways be the incentive of an expectation of something novel and valuable ; 

 for though they are so little apt to vary from the original type, there will 

 be found many variations of habit and vigour in a batch of seedlings. The 

 seed should be gathered before it is dead ripe, for fear of loss by the sjion- 

 taneous opening of the pods, and be kept in the pods till the following 



