186 BRIEF REMARKS. 



root they can only be preserved during the winter by keepino- them in 

 the most favourable circumstances, where all danger of damp and a 

 stagnant atmosphere are provided against by the ability to maintain 

 when necessary a dryisli atmosphere, and a temperature of from 40' to 

 45- in the coldest weather. If, on the other hand, the wood of tiie 

 cutting is over-matured, tliat is, if its juices are highly elaborated, 

 there is a likelihood that its organized material will be developed more 

 in the production of bloom than of wood buds. This is still more 

 likely to be the case if the young plants have been starved during cold 

 weather in winter, by being shut up and covered for days in cold pits. 

 The diminutive character, instead of being accidental, has now become 

 constitutional. Tiie stem from being hard, and liaving its juices so 

 thorougidy inspissated, is quite incompetent to act as the vehicle for 

 the transmission of flinds that would be necessary for a large-headed 

 plant. As roots and branches act and re-act relatively and co-relatively 

 upon each other, the stunted head is attended with few and diminutive 

 root feeders. Of all stunted plants rhere is nothing more discouraging 

 than a stunted geranium. The cutting off the flowers, as our corre- 

 spondent has done, will only prove a slight palliation of the evil — 

 though when persevered in, and other points of good culture are 

 attended to, tine plants ultimately may be gained. What would be 

 good culture for free-growing plants, however, will not suit these 

 stunted gentlemen ; light rich soil is the thing in which they generally 

 delight, but until you set the stuntedness adrift you must use only tlie 

 light, abjure the rich, employ small pots well drained, and keep the 

 plants in a closer atmosphere than usual. Your object would sooner 

 be gained by taking off a cutting or two, just in that state when the 

 wood is neither soft nor thoroughly indurated. Properly treated it 

 M'ill soon shoot ahead of the old plant. Cutting the plant down to the 

 surface of the soil, if it has got any roots of consequence, will also be 

 attended with more success than doctoring the stunted head. Tlie plant 

 should be kept close, rather dry than damp, until the fresh shoots ap- 

 pear, then shaken out and re-potted in the usual way. Foresters are 

 well aware of the benefit of acting upon this principle ; they do not 

 stand picking and cutting the miserable twigs of a stunted young oak, 

 that scarcely gets larger by inches in a twelvemonth, they cut it off 

 close to the ground, and in a year or two they have a clean luxuriant 

 plant, such as the original would never have been. Cuttings taken off 

 in July or August, stopped when struck, potted into small pots, stopped 

 and re-potted again in October, and potted again in early spring, will 

 make nice little bushy flowering plants the first summer, but if large 

 fine plants are wanted, growth rather than bloom must be encouraged 

 by stopping and keeping the plants rather shaded, pinching back the 

 tops or cutting them down, removing the most of the soil, or only a 

 portion, and re-potting in July or August, just as the varieties are slow 

 growing or the reverse, and early fine blooming plants will be obtained 

 for spring and summer. 



As we have said, however, we prefer spring-struck cuttings, as there 

 is comparatively little danger of them getting into a stunted habit, and 

 scarcely a cutting will fail of being made into a plant, Avhile time will 



