218 ON THE CALCEOLARIA. 



they may be kept till the following spring, by preserving them 

 from frost and being over damp. 



Half Shrubby and Shrubby kinds are easily increased by slips, 

 taken off close to the stems they proceed from. Where an op- 

 portunity occurs of keeping plants to propagate from closely 

 together, and they are placed upon a damp floor, or in a damp 

 situation, that has the effect speedily to induce the production of 

 small roots at the lower parts of many of the shoots, these shoots 

 being taken off and potted in small pots in August or September, 

 make fine plants for vigorous bloom the following year. Though 

 slips and cuttings destitute of these infant rootlets, will strike if 

 inserted in sandy peat and loam and placed in gentle heat in a 

 hot bed frame, yet I find the foregoing method much more cer- 

 tain and much less trouble is occasioned. 



During the autumn and winter I find my plants, so placed, 

 afford me a numerous stock of rooted slips to take off, and I 

 keep up my collection of young and handsome formed plants with 

 little trouble, and am enabled to turn out into the open beds, not 

 only my old plants, but any desired quantity of young ones too. 

 During the last three years I have purchased one hundred and 

 six of the best kinds I could meet with, and by this most easy 

 method of propagation I have not lost one kind, but have a suf- 

 ficient stock of each. 



Compost.— I find equal portions of turfy sandy peat, loam, leaf 

 mould, and well rotted hot-bed dung, well incorporated together 

 for a few weeks before using to be the most suitable for growing 

 the plants vigorously, I never have the compost sifted, but well 

 chopped with the spade when going to use it for potting. 



Potting. — A very free proportion of drainage is essential to 

 their success, and I place in small pots, one inch deep of broken 

 potsherds, and one inch of moss upon them, the largest pots I 

 give two inches deep of each, upon this substrata the soil is 

 placed. The Calceolaria imbibes a considerable portion of water 

 by the roots, when it is in a healthy condition, to supply it with a 

 fresh element of it, is therefore necessary ; if there be not a free 

 drainage to allow superabundant water to pass, the soil becomes 

 saturated and sour, which occasions sickliness, and often the death 

 of the plant. 



The time I repot my young plants, potted off in August and 

 September, is about the middle of February; the most vigorous 

 I plant in pots one foot in diameter and ten inches deep. Weakly 



