DIRECTIONS FOR GROWING LISIANTHUS RUSSELLIANUS. 55 



ARTICLE VI. 



DIRECTIONS FOR GROWING LISIANTHUS RUSSELLIANUS, 



BY MR. JAMES CUTHILI., FLORIST AND EARLY FORCER, DENMARK HILL, CAM- 



BEUWELL, LONDON. 



The best time to sow the seed of this most splendid plant, Lisianthus 

 Russellianus, is in March ; and as the seed is amongst the smallest 

 of nature's productions, it requires additional care in sowing ; there- 

 fore to sow it in the usual way, upon a loose soil, the first watering 

 carries the seed along with it, and hence the failure. 



Prepare the following compost — half loam, the other made up with 

 leaf, peat, or bog mould, with a little sand, place plenty of drainings 

 in the bottom of a forty-eight or thirty-two pot, fill it with the 

 compost very tight, and on the top place half an inch of sand, damp 

 the sand with water to harden the surface, sow the seed, and sprinkle 

 a very little dry sand on the top, place a propagating glass over the 

 pot, or a piece of glass will do, place your pot into a heat of seventy 

 or eighty degrees with a pan under it, for the future watering, at no 

 time water on the top, the pan ought never to be allowed to get dry. 

 The seedlings will appear in three weeks or more, then about three 

 weeks up, plant them singly in a sixty-size pot in the above com- 

 post, with plenty of drainings in the bottom. Place them again in the 

 back of your cucumber pit or frame, after this you cannot give them 

 too much water, over head, and in the pans ; and by the autumn, if 

 they have been kept in a good growing heat, they will be fine little 

 bushy plants ; top them at every joint ; in September shift them into 

 large sixties, merely to keep their roots in a more intermediate state 

 for the winter, after this all top watering must cease, and a pan 

 placed under each pot to receive the watering ; and as the winter 

 approaches not a drop of water must be allowed to fall on the plant. 

 The drier the top mould next the leaves and stem get, the more 

 certain of preserving your plant. The best place I have found is a 

 one-light pit, heated with a lining of dung from fifty to sixty degrees, 

 air given front and back, that no damp can fix on the bars and 

 drop on the plants ; the second best place is the coldest part of the 

 stove very near the glass ; I have also kept them well in the warmest 

 part of the greenhouse; in all cases just water sufficient to keep the 

 plants from flagging. If the winter is dry, water once a fortnight 

 if damp weather once a month or so ; towards the end of February 



