142 TI1E FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



level in the pot ; tben sow your seeds on the surface, and with a flat 

 piece of wood gently press the seed and soil level, theu scatter some 

 finely sifted soil loosely over it. Water with a fine rose, taking great 

 care not to wash the seeds up or disturb them. Never let the seed 

 pots get dry, and after the seeds are up take pood care to wet the 

 seedlings aslittle as you can as long as they are in their seed leaves ; 

 in case^they damp away, contrive to water round the edge of the pot 

 or box and in open spaces through. You can easily give all your 

 different kinds of seeds their proper depth in your window-box, and 

 shade them till they are up. 



You will find it a delightful and interesting pastime, raising your 

 own plants either from cuttings or seed,-, and you will have a far 

 greater interest in them, knowing them thus from their very iufaucy. 

 I explained in a former paper how to treat your seedlings after they 

 are up to ensure a good display. Your cuttings, as soon as they are 

 nicely rooted, should be potted with good potting soil into five or six 

 inch pots, where they will grow very quickly into nice little specimen 

 plants. 



THE ORANGE TEEE. 



S the season is now advancing, it may be interesting to 

 some of your readers to know that this is the best time 

 of the year to shift orange trees, they having been 

 pruned in some three weeks or a mouth back, also 

 having received a good soaking in tepid water. The 

 soil I use is two parts of the top spit of a good rich loam, which has 

 lain in a heap for six or twelve months, and turned once or twice 

 in the winter season — one part leaf-mould, a little rotten cow-dung, 

 with a sufficient quantity of silver-sand and road grit to keep the 

 soil open and porous, being well broken with the spade, but not 

 shifted, unless rubbed through a coarse sieve. Let the pots or boxes 

 be well drained, placing a little moss over the drainage to prevent 

 the soil mixing with it. In shifting the trees let the soil be pretty 

 firmly pressed about the roots, not using the soil too dry or too 

 wet. I am no advocate to sluice the water into the new-potted 

 trees as soon as the potting is completed, but let them get moderately 

 dry, and then give them a good soaking. They ought to be placed 

 in a temperature of between 50° and 60° until they have made their 

 growth, which will be by the end of May ; then let them have more 

 air, as no more fire-heat will be required after this time, giving a 

 good soaking of water as they may require it, occasionally with 

 weak liquid manure, and syringing them every fine evening. I do not 

 prefer placing the trees out-of-doors, unless it is in a very favour- 

 able or sheltered situation, screened from the raid-day sun, until the 

 latter end of August, which then ripens the wood, and the rains 

 which wash the foliage benefits the trees much. Take them into 

 the house agaiu the last week in September, and give them very 

 little water until the latter end of March. 



