iSyi.] CHRYSANTHEMUMS. 283 



misconstrued tlie purpose for which the article on the same subject in 

 the January part was written. Sensational growing never entered my 

 mind whilst penning that article, ^Ir Hignett having three years since 

 gone into "sensational" Chrysanthemum-growing in the most exhaus- 

 tive manner. The brief remarks offered to the readers of the ' Gardener ' 

 by me were intended to produce a desire in the young men who have 

 charge of the plants, (fee, in the Scotch gardens, to give more of 

 their attention to the Chrysanthemum than is, in most cases, given 

 at present. In visiting several gardens in Scotland last autumn, I saw 

 the Chrysanthemum subjected to neglect and abuse in every garden 

 where I saw it grown except one, where some nice plants were to 

 be seen. 



If the remarks I offered on its cultivation be carried out in practice 

 (as a matter of course, allowances will and must be made to suit cer- 

 tain cases), the result will be plants and flowers worth looking at twice, 

 without being disgusted with their bare stems, twisted about in all sorts 

 of ways, displaying, if nothing else, a good deal of ingenuity in that line 

 on the part of the cultivator (?). Let the hundred scrubby plants 

 cited by Mr Hmd be a warning never to grow more than can be pro- 

 perly cared for. If instead of a hundred, thirty or even fifty plants 

 had been grown as they ought to have been, how different would have 

 been the results, and that with less labour and water ! 



How plunged plants, even when deriving the benefit of a sunny 

 aspect, can reap a decided advantage in maturer wood and stubbier 

 growth, I am at a loss to conjecture. It is quite clear to me how 

 plants with roots having full benefit of the warm, healthy air, whether 

 they be soft- wooded, like Chrysanthemums, or hard-wooded, like Heaths, 

 do and must of necessity " reap a decided advantage " over those with 

 the least iJossiUe chance of either sun or air, because, comparing the roots 

 of plunged with those of unplunged plants, the more wiry and hardy 

 character of the roots of the latter over those of the former does, as a 

 matter of fact — and facts are very stubborn things — give shoots stubby, 

 with little pith, and therefore easily ripened, and leaves stronger and 

 less liable to attacks of insects and mildew, the result of the whole 

 being flowers of the best quality. It is altogether impossible that 

 giving plants (treated as thus recommended) manure-water should in- 

 duce over-luxuriance. Speaking from experience, they ought to be 

 watered thus, as soon as the roots have filled the " blooming " pots, 

 for if withheld, they will become, to use a Scotticism, " set on. " If a 

 plant from 3 to 4 feet high, clothed with beautiful healthy leaves from 

 the base of the stem upwards, and surmounted with nine "blooms" 

 from 3 to 5 J inches in diameter, be not worth looking at, tell me what 

 is ! With but little extra Avork, two plants can be grown in a 10-inch 



