72 



THE GERANIUM AND ITS CULTURE. 



ted by persons who have no notion of its 

 value. Private establishments do not, in 

 general, produce such specimens; and many 

 who buy at large prices, get dissatisfied 

 with their gardeners for not producing the 

 plants as large and as handsome as those 

 exhibited at the public shows. There is, 

 however, a medium as to compost, and no 

 one ought to go to extremes, except by way 

 of experiment, and that should be with a 

 very few of their plants, and not the best. 

 The compost that does least harm, is vege- 

 table mould and loam ; hardly any propor- 

 tions of these can be mischievous. In short, 

 plants will grow in either of them without 

 much danger to their constitution, aUhough 

 they may affect the first growth ; but as we 

 propose to treat of all the different stages 

 of growth, the soil to be used, and every 

 necessary particular, under their various 

 heads, we need only say here, that we wish 

 to see geraniums grown in good health and 

 strength, supporting themselves, instead of 

 being propped up with a hundred sticks, 

 which are destructive to the nature of the 

 flower and plant, discreditable to the gar- 

 dener, and to the societies who encourage 

 him ; in short, it answers but one purpose, 

 which is filling the tables, and a mass of 

 imperfect blooms, instead of a reasonable 

 quantity of noble flowers, is the result. 

 Nevertheless, it is the fashion, and the 

 prizes are too tempting for gardeners, who 

 are generally ill paid, to resist. In obedi- 

 ence to the mania for such things, we shall 

 be obliged to direct how to spoil as well as 

 how to grow geraniums ; but our mind has 

 been always made up to one thing, and we 

 shall pay attention to it as a necessary pre- 

 caution against the all-absorbing propensity 

 to admire large plants. If the public were 

 shown how grand the flowers come when 

 grown on the leading shoot, without cutting 

 back, or stopping, when only three or four, 

 or, perhaps, half a dozen lateral shoots ap- 

 pear, they would hardly know the same 

 varieties ; but if even these lateral shoots 

 are taken off, and the whole strength is 

 thrown into the leader, (which we should 

 do, if we were going to show a single truss 

 of the cut flower,) or, what is, perhaps, the 

 best of all, to allow the leaders and the 

 laterals that come naturally to make their 

 growth, and as soon as the laterals show 



their buds, to pick them off, which is of 

 great assistance to the main bloom, they 

 would not be quite so fond of the enormous 

 plants, and the victimized flowers, that 

 crowd upon the artificially grown, and still 

 more artificially supported specimens that 

 now occupy their attention at shows, and 

 literally disguise the varieties that are re- 

 ally good. It is quite notorious that a 

 flower is never seen afterwards so good as 

 when it is exhibited with its first bloom ; 

 and it is thought by some that the flowers 

 degenerate. Let them stop back a currant 

 tree, and constantly top the laterals, until 

 they crowd it with comparatively weak 

 shoots, and see if they get the flowers and 

 fruit so large ; but it is a strange fancy that, 

 in geraniums, the art of gardening is re- 

 versed ; instead of pruning out branches, to 

 give light, air, and strength, to those re- 

 maining, that the plant may have less than 

 its natural work to do. 



THE CULTUKE. 



Scil. — To do justice to the culture of 

 geraniums, it is necessary to be provided 

 with several ingredients in their purest state. 

 The first of these, and by far the most im- 

 portant, is the loam, formed by the turf, cut 

 three inches thick, from a loamy pasture, 

 and laid together until the entire vegetable 

 matter is decomposed. To effect this, the 

 turves should be laid grass to grass, and 

 roots to roots, one on the other, till all of 

 them are built into a stack. At the end of 

 one year, this should be chopped down into 

 slices, and thrown into a heap, some person 

 picking out grubs, wire-worms, or other 

 vermin, likely to be injurious to the plant; 

 for it is notorious, that no earth is so full of 

 such as that formed of rotten turves, the 

 roots being in general so great a harbor for 

 both wire-worms and grubs of various kinds, 

 The object of chopping it down in these 

 slices, is to detect them the more easily. 

 When the entire stack is thus chopped to 

 pieces and put into a heap, it should lay 

 another year together, and it will be fit for 

 use ; and the heap of compost thus formed 

 will be, as nearly as may be, half loam and 

 half vegetable mould, and this compost 

 would, of itself, grow almost anything. 

 The only possible evil that could be, is re- 

 tentiveness, or adhesiveness ; but, unless 

 the natural loam were very stiff indeed, 



