54 ON PELARGONIUMS. 



tender wood. For choice kinds 1 use the smaller CO pots, and put 

 one cutting- in each pot, by which plan 1 run no risk in potting - . For 

 commoner kinds, when a cutting or two is no object, I use 3G pots, 

 putting five or six cuttings in each, round the edge of the pot ; and 

 when fairly struck I pot them oft' into small pots, and put them into a 

 frame and shade until fresh rooted. 



The best season to put in cuttings, undoubtedly, is the month of 

 March ; cuttings made at that season and plunged out rather deep in 

 their small pots in the open ground in June, and taken up and repotted 

 before the frost sets in in Autumn, makes the best plants ; they are 

 stiff, bushy, dwarfish, healthy plants, and flower admirably the fol- 

 lowing spring. The month of July, however, is the season when cut- 

 tings are most plentiful, on account of the flowering season in the 

 greenhouse being over, and many of the plants requiring cutting down. 

 Cuttings made in July I pot off when struck, in pure loam in small 

 pots, and plunge them up to the rims of the pots in coal ashes at the 

 back of some low hedge or paling, shading them from the sun. 



The best situation in which to strike the cuttings, is a small frame 

 set upon a moderate hotbed, the dung to be covered with some sand 

 or coal ashes three or four inches thick, and the cutting pots set 

 upon them, shading with a thick mat during sunshine, and kept 

 close for ten days or a fortnight, unless steam arises when the lights 

 are propped up an inch or two in a morning. As soon as I judge they 

 have formed their callosities, (a swelling at the bottom of the cuttings,) 

 I gradually inure them to the full sun. I water very moderately until 

 they are struck, when those that are in single pot I place in a shady 

 part of the greenhouse, to harden a little previous to plunging out 

 of doors. 



When a large supply is wanted for the flower garden and I am short 

 of room or convenience, I take of as many cuttings as I judge, needful 

 in the month of September, and keep them in the cutting pots until 

 March, when I pot them single, and grow (hem in a pit or frame until 

 the planting season. 



Propagation by Seed. — When the seed is ripe I gather it and keep 

 it dry until February or March, when I take 30 pots filled with a com- 

 post of rotten leaves, peat earth, and loam, in ecpial parts, well drained, 

 the compost I press down pretty firm, and sow the seed rather thin, 

 covering it with the same soil very lightly, placing them in the frame 

 with the cuttings. When they have come up and have made their 

 second leaves, I pot them off into GO pots, and replace them in the 

 frame until they are well established, when I take them into the green- 

 house near the glass, gradually inuring them to the open air, and 

 then I plunge them out, as I manage the cuttings in single pots above 

 mentioned. 



Both cuttings and seedlings when about four inches high should 

 have the top buds nipped oft', which makes them branch out three or 



