THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 165 



pots, stopping the holes in the pots with an oyster-shell or bit of 

 tile ; and if dry sunny days follow the planting, let the pots remain 

 over them all day for four days, and by that time they may be taken 

 off every morning and put on at night, till the weather is mild 

 enough to leave them altogether exposed. If a portion of the seed- 

 lings were pricked off into small pots, with rich loam and leaf-mould, 

 and kept in a greenhouse or cold pit till they filled the pots with 

 i*oots. they would produce a finer lot for the best positions. 



Now, to make these border balsams worth the place yon have 

 given them, you must give them plenty of water from the very 

 moment they begin to make growth. In dry weather, water them 

 once a-day till they are six inches high ; then water them twice 

 a-day ; and as they come towards blooming, give it them three 

 times a-day ; and from the first they should have liquid manure 

 once a-week, then twice a-week, and at last, when they are settiug 

 for hloom, every other day, no matter if the weather be wet or dry; 

 in fact, during rainy weather, the liquid manure may be a little 

 stronger than at other times, and diluted house-slops is the very 

 best stimulant they can have. 



There is another point of equal importance that must be attended 

 to in good time, and that is stopping. One reason why so many 

 people have poor balsams is, because they allow them to grow and 

 flower as they like, and the drier they are kept the sooner they 

 flower ; so that if left to themselves, they run up six inches, then 

 produce a few miserable blossoms on the stem, and their career is 

 at an end ; but, by compelling growth instead of bloom, you may 

 get. them to almost any size you like; and the larger and stronger 

 you have the plants, the more grand will be their show of bloom 

 when they are finally allowed to display themselves. Therefore, 

 when your little plants have half-a-dozen leaves, nip out the centre 

 of each. They will then throw half-a-dozen side-branches; when 

 these are a little advanced, nip them in the same manner, and con- 

 tinue stopping as fast as there are sufficient joints of the new growth 

 to afford a basis for a fresh development of side-shoots. All this 

 while give plenty of water, and increase the strength of the liquid 

 manure; and if you never took much note of balsams before, you 

 w ill be astonished to see the stems increase to the thickness of a 

 stout walking-stick, acd with splendid heads and bright healthy 

 foliage. You must determine for yourself whether you will have 

 them larger or not, for now they will, in spite of stopping, begin to 

 produce flower buds. If these are allowed to swell, they will make 

 very little more growth; but if every one be picked oif, they will 

 break again another crop of side-shoots, and make still finer heads ; 

 and if you want them in bloom by a certain time, you only need give 

 them a fortnight in hot weather, or three weeks later in the .-eason; 

 and, by discontinuing stoppings and disbmldings, you will have them 

 in bloom by that time — not a few miserable flowers ou the central 

 stem, but loaded to the extremity of every shoot, and one mass of 

 colour all over. While they last they are superb indeed, but they 

 do not Last Long ; and uuless you purpose taking seed from the best, 

 they should be rooted up and got rid of as soon as they are past 



June. 



