2 
GERANIUM. 
flowered, they should be cut down 
nearly to the ground, or they will 
always present an etiolated un- 
healthy appearance. By thus cut- 
ting them down, abundance of fine 
young shoots will be produced by 
the autumn, which shouid be thin- 
ned out, and those taken out used 
as cuttings. In this manner, good 
bushy plants are insured, and plenty 
of young plants provided for the 
next year. Many hundreds of beau- 
tiful varieties of Geraniums have 
been raised from seed: the more re- 
markable are cross-breeds ; that is, 
those raised from a plant the stigma 
of which has been fecundated by 
pollen from the anthers of another 
variety of the same species. In 
. this respect, cross-breeds differ from 
hybrids, which are raised from seed 
fecundated from a plant of a differ. 
ent genus, or, at any rate, a very 
different species. ‘The use of cross- 
breeding is thus rather to improve 
plants, by crossing them with others 
having a better habit of growth, or 
more brilliant coloured flowers, than 
to raise new and striking varieties ; 
and, for this purpose, the plants 
chosen for the parents should be 
such as would be greatly improved 
by admixture with another. For 
example, a fine bright coloured 
flower, on a plant of a loose and bad 
habit of growth, might be crossed 
by a plant of a dwarf habit, the 
flowers of which were not beautiful, 
and so on. The plant that is in- 
tended to bear the seed should be 
carefully watched, and just before 
the pollen bursts, the stamens should 
be cut off. The operator must then 
wait till the stigma becomes cover- 
ed with moisture exuding from it; 
and then, but not before, the pollen 
from the other plant must be ap- 
plied with the point of a penknife, 
2 
~ 
3 
GERANIUM. 
may be collected and kept in paper, 
till the stigma is ready to receive 
it. In some cases pollen has been 
kept good in this manner for two 
years; but the moisture of the 
stigma should be taken advantage 
of as soon as it appears, as it soon 
dries up, and cannot be restored 
artificially. ‘The best time for per- 
forming the operation seems to be 
about the middle of a bright sunny 
day; and, as soon as it is done,a 
bit of string, or a strand of bast- 
mat, should be tied round the stem 
of the flower, that the seed-pod 
may be known. As soon as the 
seeds are ripe, they should be sown 
immediately in shallow pans of light 
sandy soil, and set on a greenhouse 
shelf, where they may be suffered 
to remain during the winter. Many 
of the young plants will come up 
by spring, when they should be im- 
mediately potted off into single pots, 
and treated as before recommended 
for cuttings. 
The following mode of grafting 
Geraniums is abridged from the 
« Floricultural Magazine? for May, 
1840. The stocks should be of the 
strongest and healthiest kinds, 
about two or three years old, and 
rendered bushy by frequent trans- 
planting, and pinching off the lead- 
ing shoots. The year before they 
are wanted as stocks, they should 
be cut down in August to within 
three eyes (or buds) of the base of 
each shoot. In the following May 
the stocks should be transplanted 
into fresh pots, a size larger than 
their old ones; and, early in June. 
they should be “ cut down to a clear 
grown part of the shoot, about twe 
inches from the last year’s wood.” 
The stock should then be left twa 
or three days to bleed, that is, to 
suffer the exuberant sap to escape ; 
or the hairs of a camel’s hair pencil. | after which it may be grafted in 
Should the cells of the anthers of the | the whip or side manner, without a 
one plant burst before the stigma of 
tongue; care being taken to choose 
the other becomes moist, the pollen | ‘* well-ripened shoots, about three 
