THE 



FLORICULTURAL CABINET, 



FEBRUARY 1st, 1837. 



PART I. 



ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



ARTICLE I. 



ON THE CULTURE OF THE NEAPOLITAN VIOLET. 



BV MR. ERRINGTON, OULTON PARK, CHESHIRE. 



I beg to hand you the following remarks, on the culture of that 

 lovely winter flower the Neapolitan Violet, for insertion in your 

 excellent Magazine, if you consider it worth your notice ; for I do not 

 remember having seen anything of the kind in that work from its 

 commencement. 



The first part of the process is to obtain early runners, to affect 

 which it is of course necessary to have a bed or patch of established 

 plants in hand — such being the case, commence your operations early 

 in April, by sifting some very fine vegetable mould all over them ; of 

 course not choking the plants, but merely to form a receptacle for 

 the fibres of the young runners. In the course of a month, by due 

 attention to watering when dry, &c, (a process particularly neces- 

 sary,) fine early young runners may be obtained. Prepare them a 

 bed or beds on an open and airy border, (south if possible,) and if 

 the soil be somewhat solid so much the better, as the object is 

 not so much to get an excessively luxuriant, as an early and stiff 

 plant. On this solid sub-soil (if I may so term it) raise a bed six 

 inches above the common level, with soil composed as nearly as 

 possible, of equal parts of fresh loam, inclining to lightness and vegetable 

 soil ; by which latter I mean about equal parts of bog or heath soil, 

 and finely decomposed leaf mould. 



On this bed prick them out at about eight inches apart each way, 

 and all that remains to be done, while they are in this situation, is to push 

 their cultivation on as fast as possible, by complete attention to 

 watering and weeding. If the weather prove excessively sunny for 

 days together, shading at any period through the summer will be 

 highly advantageous. One thing must be here remarked, — to- 



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