78 THE GARDENER. [Feb. 



THE CYCLAMEN. 



Tue Cyclamen is fast rising to the front ranks as a decorative plant. 

 This is not to be wondered at ; for where cut flowers are in demand, 

 where rooms have to be decorated with flowering plants, and con- 

 servatories kept gay through the winter and spring months, there is 

 no plant that will adapt itself better to the purpose than the Cycla- 

 men. Cut liowers of it last a long time, and plants of it in a light 

 position in rooms continue to throw up their flowers, and keep in good 

 condition a considerable length of time. If the cultivator is in 

 possession of a good strain of plants, the best system is to save seed 

 from them, which will be ripe about July or August, when it 

 should at once be sown. Some growers prefer sowing the seed in 

 February and March ; and if the seed is not home- saved, and has to 

 be purchased, it frequently, when old, is a long time before it germin- 

 ates ; and if not sown till February, half the season is gone before 

 the seedlings are up. If home-saved seed be sown when ripe, it 

 germinates quickly, and allows a long season of growth. 



The seed should be sown in pans in a light rich compost, not 

 covering too deeply. When well watered, the pan should be covered 

 with a sheet of glass, and moss laid over the glass. It soon germinates 

 if placed in a temperature of 60°. As soon as the plants appear 

 they should be gradually exposed to the light near the glass ; and if 

 kept in the temperature named, they soon form small bulbs, leaf 

 after leaf springs up, and in a very short time the seedlings are ready 

 to be pricked off into other pans, which are preferable to small pots, 

 pans not being so liable to get dry. 



The Cyclamen should never be allowed to suffer for want of water 

 during the season of active growth. When the young plants are 

 large enough, they should be taken out of the pans and put into 

 3-inch pots, in a compost of rich fibry-loam, a little cow-manure, 

 and sufficient sand to make the whole porous. When the plants 

 have taken well to the new soil, they will grow rapidly ; and every 

 care must be exercised that they receive no check. When the pots 

 are full of roots, the plants should be repotted into 4-inch pots, using 

 the same compost. The plants should be gradually hardened off from 

 the temperature they have been growing in, and placed in cold 

 frames ; and on all favourable occasions they should have abundance 

 of air while making their growth, the frames being closed, and the 

 plants dewed overhead with the syringe on fine afternoons. They 

 should continue to grow apace, until they are ready for their final shift 

 into 5 or 6 inch pots— although the size of pot should be determined 

 by the cultivator, according to the different purposes the plants are re- 



