1879.] MIGNONNETTE FOR WINTER FORCING. 23 



mencement, but to keep them moving steadily till genial weather is 

 ready to assist you, and then drive them along as fast as they will go. 

 When the weather is mild enough in June to leave them unprotected, 

 their position through the summer, whether it is favourable or other- 

 wise, is of far greater moment than the actual attention required in 

 watering, pinching, and training. The pots should be set either on 

 wooden spars or on a bed of coal-ashes or other rubble, behind a north 

 wall, where they will have the benefit of light, but no actual sunshine 

 unless what is subdued by decreasing power in the afternoon. In 

 a week or two after they are fully exposed they may have their final 

 shift into 9- or 10-inch pots, and training should be commenced im- 

 mediately afterwards. Most people have wire-trellises made by the 

 skilled hands of the wire-workers, and only need fastening to the pot. 

 The umbrella standards, at all events, are best procured ready made, 

 and when fixed in the pot the leading shoots should be drawn with a 

 view to filling the trellis equally at the end of the season : one tie to 

 each shoot will be sufficient at the beginning, and all through the 

 season the shoots may be allowed plenty of growing room, merely keep- 

 ing the main growths within bounds. The pyramids are easily formed, 

 the principal thing required being a little judgment in anticipating 

 what size of trellis a plant would cover from its appearance at the end 

 of June. The pyramid is formed in a rude way by placing a stout up- 

 right stake, painted green, to the plant, and by putting a wire-hoop 

 round the rim of the pot, extended or otherwise, as the case, may re- 

 quire, then adjust fine wires from the summit of the stake to the wire- 

 hoop with the matter of three or four circles interwoven in the vertical 

 wires to make the trellis convenient and substantial ; the shoots are 

 then regulated all over the trellis at equal distances, and every sub- 

 sequent shoot formed is laid in to fill the spaces between. 



It would be almost superfluous to refer to artificial bush-training, the 

 system is so well known : one advantage, however, in the management 

 of large bush specimens, is to run fine wires from stake to stake at 

 about an inch from the top of each, so as to form a sort of hidden 

 framework to train upon. I saw one of those lovely bush specimens 

 7 feet 4 inches in diameter last year, which was timed to a nicety 

 in tying, and the effect was all that could be desired. But to 

 return to the details of summer treatment, after the last potting the 

 plants will now grow apace, and must be regularly watered and 

 syringed overhead, twice a-day in bright weather, for reasons before 

 suggested. All flowers should be removed as they appear, and training 

 proceeded with in a rough w r ay till the approach of autumn, w 7 hen 

 system and regularity should be the order of the day ; but at no time 

 do we advise or recommend training of a style that savours of trim- 

 ming at a barber's shop. As the days grow short and the nights grow 

 cold at the end of September, the plants will require the protection of 

 glass, and to be gradually introduced in small numbers to a tempera- 



