276 ON THE GERANIUM ilOUSfi 



placed in the Geranium house, or if they be kept in a cool, airy pit 

 or frame, they need not be removed till the beginning of Novem- 

 ber : at all events, at whatever period they are brought in, it is 

 essential that they should be placed as near to the glass as possi- 

 ble, and abundantly supplied with air, and not set too closely 

 together. All rambling shoots, and such as appear to grow too' 

 fast, should be pinched off, for the future habit of the plant de- 

 pends on its treatment at this period. Most young plants have a 

 tendency to send up one leading shoot, which often attains a con- 

 siderable height without sending out lateral branches. A plant 

 allowed to run so, can never afterwards be brought into a hand- 

 some form, and if the formation of the plant be not set about when 

 young, it cannot be done afterwards without sacrificing the flow- 

 ers, which lie in embryo in the points of the shoots that would in 

 that case be cut off. One of the greatest faults in the ordinary 

 mode of cultivating Geraniums is, to run up tall and naked at the 

 bottom; when such a course is followed, the plants will neither 

 flower well nor look so handsome. 



The Greenhouse kinds of Geraniaceae, though nearly all natives 

 of the Cape of Good Hope, are much less hardy than the family 

 of Erica from the same country ; this may be accounted for in 

 various ways; — soft wooded or succulent plants arc more liable to 

 be injured by frost, than hard wooded plants from that latitude, 

 their exterior skin or outer bark being very thin, and their juices 

 being extremely abundant. Again most of the family Erica are 

 indigenous to the mountains, while most of tile Geraniums are in- 

 habitants of the plains, thus proving that altitude is as much to be 

 studied in calculating the comparative degree of hardiness in 

 plants, as latitude. 



»' We know,*' says Mr. M'Nab," from undoubted authority, that 

 certain species of Cape Geraniaceae, and certain species of Erica 

 grow together in the same kind of soil, and in the same situation, 

 intermixed one with the other in their native country ; but we 

 know that in this country the same species of heaths will bear a 

 degree of cold with impunity, which will materially injure, and 

 in many cases kill the Pelargoniums growing beside them. 



" To grow Cape Eviceae and Geraniaceae well together, would 

 require far nicer management than I pretend to be acquainted 

 with. I know, however, that heaths will bear a degree of cold in 

 the o-reenhonsc in whiter, (which I am persuaded is beneficial to 

 their health) which will materially injure Cape Geraniaceee. If 



