162 THE FLOEAL WORLD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 



tie out the branches to them so as to form a round bush with a good 

 head, and the flowers regularly displayed all over it. Plenty of 

 water must be given all through the summer, and in rainy weather 

 it will strengthen the blooms to give a little liquid manure. Only 

 one stem should be allowed to a plant, and any ill-placed side-shoots 

 or rank superfluous growths should be cut clean away to the base. 

 Plants that bloom too profusely should be thinned of their buds to 

 get finer blooms ; this is a very necessary practice where dahlias are 

 to be cut for show, or where the highest perfections of a choice sort 

 are to be fully brought out. The dahlia is a robust grower, and 

 rarely fails to reward the painstaking cultivator. It is not much 

 civen to green-fly or thrips, but earwigs devastate its foliage and 

 bloom-buds to a terrible extent, if allowed to gain the ascendency. 

 These vermin, however, may be trapped with the greatest ease, for 

 they feed at night, and on the return of daylight take shelter in any 

 neighbouring crevice. Hence a flower-pot stuffed full of hay or 

 moss and mounted on a stake, is a very effectual trap ; but better 

 still, cut beanstalks into six-inch lengths and thrust them into the 

 middle of the plants over night, and early in the morning take them 

 out and blow the earwigs into a pot of salt and water. Crab-shells, 

 lobster-claws, and other ill-lookiug devices, are used in cottage 

 gardens ; but they spoil the beauty of the garden, and it would almost 

 be better to let the earwigs eat up the dahlias root and branch than 

 trap them with such deformities. There is an excellent implement 

 known as " Edwards' Earwig Trap," made by Edwards, of Paul's 

 Square, Birmingham, which every dahlia-grower should use in pre- 

 ference to the rude traps which so disfigure a garden. 



As soon as dahlias die down in autumn — and the first frost will 

 turn them black and bring their glory to an end — cut them clean 

 over to the ground, and lift the roots carefully with a fork. Take 

 them up without bruising the fleshy tubers, and at once attach tallies 

 to them, to prevent mistakes at next season's planting, and lay them 

 in some spare dry corner with a little earth over them for a few days. 

 Then shake off the mould and lay the roots in shallow baskets, and 

 store away anywhere out of reach of frost or damp. The least touch 

 of frost will kill them, and damp, for any length of time, will cause 

 them to turn mouldy and rot. An attic is an excellent store-room. 

 The dahlia is of precisely the same constitution as a potato ; every 

 eye on the tuber will make a plant, and tubers cut so as to leave one 

 eve to each piece may be planted at the end of April or early in 

 May, and will throw up a stem and make a good plant. But the 

 usual way is to get them forward in heat, so as, by having plenty of 

 roots and a stem already formed before they are planted out, to get 

 them earlier in bloom. Hard-eyed sorts never bloom well in 

 London.— Town Garden, 2nd edition. 



