96 Greenhouse and Stove Plants. 
succession as the growth advances, will be 
sacrificed. The plants will now be very 
useful for decoration of the conservatory, 
to which structure they may be removed ; 
there they will keep on blooming until the 
autumn is advanced, when they should be 
transferred to their winter quarters, in a 
similar temperature to that in which they 
were kept the preceding season. As the 
previous season’s shoots will have attained 
a good length through being allowed to 
grow without stopping, they should in 
the spring, a little before growth com- 
mences, be cut back to within 6 inches of 
the point to which they were last spring 
stopped. If not well shortened in this way 
the plants will get an untidy, straggling 
appearance, as the leaves are not long 
retained on the old wood. When they 
have fairly broken into growth give them 
pots 2 inches larger, and treat as previously 
advised through the summer and succeed- 
ing winter; in the spring again shorten 
back the shoots, but unless very large 
specimens are wanted it will not be neces- 
sary to repot them—the requisite assistance 
can be given by the use of manure-water 
once a week. By stimulants of this kind 
the plants may be kept in good healthy 
flowering condition another summer, after 
which it will be needful either to give 
larger pots or to remove several inches of 
the surface and replace it with new soil 
containing one-fifth part of rotten manure. 
This is one of the comparatively few hard- 
wooded greenhouse plants that will bear 
this replacement of the surface soil without 
danger of injury to the roots or collar. 
This Cassia is equally well adapted for 
covering a back wall in a greenhouse or 
conservatory, or for clothing a pillar; in 
the former case it should be planted out in 
a well-prepared border of good sandy loam, 
with drainage enough to ensure a ready 
exit for the large quantities of water a plant 
with such an amount of leaf-surface will 
require. Small plants, previous to turning 
out, should be grown for a season, as 
advised for pot specimens, so as to get them 
furnished with enough roots to enable them 
at once to lay hold of the soil when put 
out, which should be in the spring before 
growth has commenced, The roots ought 
to be opened well out so as to give them 
from the first their required position, for 
if just merely turned out with the ball 
entire, and the roots undisturbed in the 
spiral curved form they necessarily have 
attained whilst confined in a pot, the plants 
in all probability will make little progress. 
In training keep the strongest branches 
the lowest horizontally and allow the 
weaker ones a more upright position. 
CELOSIA. 
This will tend to equalise the strength. 
Keep them stopped sufficiently to cause 
them to break enough shoots to cover the 
required space, and to furnish each summer 
an even clothing of young flowering 
branches. When this plant is so managed 
it has not the fault of many climbers in 
blooming only at the extremities of the 
shoots, and leaving a large portion at the 
bottom destitute of flowers. Plants in 
such a situation can be kept in a vigorous 
state by the use of manure-water and 
surface-dressings of rich soil. 
Iysects.—This Cassia is not much sub- 
ject to the attacks of insects. Red spider 
will live upon it, for which a regular use 
of the syringe is the best antidote. Thrips 
and greenfly are also sometimes communi- 
cated to it from other plants, but can easily 
be destroyed by fumigation or syringing 
with tobacco-water. Scale will likewise 
live on it. If it is much affected with this 
pest the best plan is, to cut well in a 
short time before growth commences in the 
springand wash thoroughly with insecticide 
sufficiently strong to destroy the scale. 
Repeat the dressing and brush it into 
the inequalities of the bark three or four 
times before the plant breaks into 
growth. 
CELOSIA. 
These are tender annuals, mostly natives 
of India, of which the Cockscomb with its 
near ally Celosia pyramidalis are the best 
known and most generally cultivated 
kinds. Both are useful decorative plants. 
The seeds should be sown in pans in spring 
and stood on a hot bed where an inter- 
mediate temperature can be kept up ; just 
cover the seed and shade the surface from 
the sun. When the plants appear stand 
near the glass, and as soon as they are 3 
inches high move them singly into 3-inch 
pots, and drain moderately. Good turfy 
loam to which is added one-sixth of rotten 
manure, some leaf-mould and a little sand, 
will grow them well. Keep close for a few 
days and shade slightly from the sun; this 
is necessary at all times in bright weather, 
for if the leaves are injured the appearance 
of the plants is spoilt. Care must be taken 
that they never want for water, as the 
leaves will also suffer from this cause. 
Give air daily, and syringe in the after- 
noons at closing time; a night temperature 
of 60° with proportionately more heat in 
the day will answer for them. When the 
soil is fairly filled with roots put them in 
their flowering-pots—8 or 10 inches in 
diameter will be quite big enough. 
Continue to treat as before, still keep them 
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