ON SOIL SUITABLE FOU THE FUCHSIA. S7 



ARTICLE VII. 



OBSERVATIONS UPON ANNUALS TO BLOOM EARLY IN SPRING 



OR SUMMER. 



BY M. T.. P., OF WILTS. 



The best period for sowing- annuals that are intended for spring- 

 flowering is the month of August, or early in September, as those 

 instances of success which have occurred to us have for the most 

 part been from self-sown seeds, which have doubtless been scattered 

 nearly at that time. The seeds should be very lightly covered, or 

 only worked into the soil with a rake, and not be sown too thickly, 

 because, when the young plants have to be much thinned, the re- 

 maining ones will be weak, and inevitably damaged in some degree. 

 On the other hand, they must not be som'h very sparingly, as it is 

 desirable that the plants be near enough to each other to allow of 

 some dying in the winter, and also to form a covering to the soil, 

 which shall assist in protecting the roots. Unless sown in pots 

 (which is a troublesome and unsatisfactory process at this season), 

 and kept in frames through the severest weather, no autumn-sown 

 annual should ever be transplanted, for they never recover sufficiently 

 that vigour, and that firm establishment in the earth, which are 

 essential to their preservation, if in any way transferred from the spot 

 where they germina'e. They may be thinned to two or three inches 

 apart, leaving the strongest and healthiest, and best-rooted plants ; 

 and if it should appear, as winter advances, that their roots are so 

 near the surface as to render them liable to injury from winds or 

 other circumstances, a mulching of soil can be carefully laid over 

 the bed. In the spring, all that will be necessary will be to train the 

 branches of the living specimens over those places where any may 

 happen to have perished, and the display of blossoms will be most 

 brilliant and durable. 



ARTICLE VIII. 



ON POTTING, AND SOIL SUITED TO GROW THE FUCHSIA 



VERY SUCCESSFULLY. 



by a. o. 



Having, in February, prepared a suitable quantity of well aerated 

 lumpy loam, fibrous loam, and peat, with a proportion of charcoal 



