74 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
limits. The seedlings will bear more light and air than the cuttings, 
and they should as far as possible be placed on one side of the 
frame by themselves, so that they may not be shaded more than is 
necessary. The cuttings must be exposed as fully to the light and 
air as they can bear, but as no definite rule can be made for regulat- 
ing the shading and air-giving, it will be well to say that the leaves 
will flag immediately the light and airare too much, or the supply of 
water insufficient for them, and that if they are closely watched, as 
they must be to ensure successful results, there will be no difficulty 
in arriving at correct conclusions upon these points. 
The cuttings of all bedding plants, and, in fact, of everything 
not requiring a stove temperature, should be removed from the pro- 
pagating bed to a warm, close corner of a greenhouse or pit, imme- 
diately they are struck, and the stove plants to the proper structure 
for them. In the case of the bedders, it is a very excellent plan to 
have a hand-glass placed in the greenhouse, and to put them in this 
and keep close for a few days, for the heat and humidity of the 
frame will have made them so tender that sudden exposure to a free 
circulation of air will be most hurtful. They should, when hardened 
sufficiently, be potted off separately, or be planted in shallow boxes, 
for if they are left long in the cutting boxes they ‘become weak and 
spindling, and are a long time in acquiring strength. As soon as 
the last batch of cuttings and seedlings have been removed from the 
frame, take away the ashes, and in the centre of the lights form 
hillocks of a suitable compost, and plant out melons or cucumbers. 
To secure a crop at the earliest possible moment, sow the seed about 
three weeks beforehand, and pot off separately, and shift into six- 
inch pots immediately they acquire sufficient strength for the 
successive removals. 
DAHLIAS FOR BEDS AND BORDERS. 
BY JOHN WALSH. 
fAHLIAS contribute so much to the attractiveness of the 
flower garden during the summer and autumn, that I 
hope, as an old cultivator, to be excused in asking for 
a little space to say a word or two in their fayour, and 
to remind readers that to have a stock of strong plants 
fhe bedding out at the end of May, preparations must be commenced 
at once. Especially suited are they to the requirements of those 
who have but little space to winter bedders, for from the time of the 
roots being lifted in the autumn, until they are started into growth 
in the spring, they can be kept ina cellar, loft, shed, or other con- 
venient storehouse where they will be cool, dry, and safe from frost. 
The only time they require the aid of glass i is, from the early part of 
March until the middle of May, a period of two months, and during 
one haif at least of this time they can be placed in a turf pit, or 
other “rough-and-ready ” structure. 
Some of the varieties, it is proper to say, make splendid bedders, 
