ON THE CULTURK OF rRIMULA. SINENSIS. 171 



I fear I cannot add much to the simple routine by which it can be 

 flowered in great perfection ; but there is one feature in my mode of 

 treatment, by which I not only protract and control the period of 

 blowing my plants, but add materially to their superior growth and 

 beauty. I have practised it for more than ten years on this flower. 

 I allude to the system of disbudding, which has already been noticed 

 in the Cabinet, an incident very much neglected in the cultivation of 

 plants generally, and which, at some future period, may command 

 further notice, "if you think it would be acceptable to your readers. 

 [We shall feel much obliged by the attention of our correspondent to 

 it at an early convenience, so that it may be acted upon this season.— 



Conductor.] 



In this plant, like its congeners, the stamen in some rise above 

 the stigma, and in others the stigma stands up above the anthers, 

 and are what, I think, are termed crown and pin eyed ; this may 

 account for their not always being productive of seed, without the 

 assistance of art. The defect may be remedied by the use of a camel 

 hair pencil, to convey the pollen to the stigma. I have no doubt they 

 are capable of hybridizing with other plants of the genera ; but of this 

 I have had no experience. 



I sow in a gentle heat in the beginning of April, and again early 

 in August, covering the seed sown at the latter period with a little 

 moss to prevent evaporation ; in both cases the plants are put out 

 singly into sixties as soon as the rough leaves are half an inch across, 

 in a compost of equal parts of light loam, leaf or vegetable mould, 

 and peat, in which white sand abounds, and this compost is used 

 through all their future culture : neither of these sowings are made 

 to flower the same year. The early-sown plants are kept in vigorous 

 growth by frequent shiftings and the use of liquid manure twice a 

 week; those sown in August are kept in sixties in a greenhouse or 

 frame through the winter till March, when they are treated the same 

 as the spring-sown plants. The August-sown plants are not allowed 

 to expand their blooms till the autumn of the following year, there- 

 fore all the blossom stems that appear before they are required are 

 cut off as soon as they can be distinguished; these plants are made 

 to blossom in succession till Christmas, when the spring-sown plants, 

 by a like treatment of disbudding, arc brought to succeed them, and 

 to carry on the bloom till May. The nice adaptation of water in 



