836 THE FLORAL WOULD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



plants before their beauty is all fled will prevent this, for if the 

 name is gone you will be able to keep a description of tbe flower. 

 The proper mode of preserving the tubers during the winter does 

 not seem to be generally understood, since amateurs are continually 

 complaining that their stock is partly or wholly lost at the time for 

 propagating. 



Where there is a greenhouse, the roots are generally safe under 

 the stage, placed in a heap, and covered with a mat or some straw. 

 They have also been kept in a sound state in the stable, or any out- 

 building secured from frost. Others have found that when left in the 

 ground, and properly covered up. Dahlias are generally in a healthy 

 state in the spring. Last year I potted mine, like potatoes, and 

 found them in good order, except that some slugs had got in and 

 feasted gloriously on the tubers, crowns and all. This catastrophe 

 might have been prevented by filling up the interstices with dry 

 ashes. I have no doubt that if the stems were cut off to within 

 three inches of the ground, and some ashes placed round them in a 

 conical form, and then some litter spread on the surface, the roots 

 would be found in fine condition in the spring. But this is an ob- 

 jectionable practice in many respects. It leaves the garden in an 

 untidy condition, and takes up room which might be properly occu- 

 pied with spring bulbs. It is doubtless the case that the roots of 

 Dahlias are less dependent on the place they occupy in the winter 

 than on certain conditions in which they are stored away. I believe 

 they are more frequently injured by early frosts than is imagined, 

 for the effects of such injury do not manifest themselves imme- 

 diately ; all appears sound at first, but the results become evident 

 in a general rottenness before the winter is past. If the tubers are 

 quite sound when taken from the soil, and have not been allowed to 

 become glutted with heavy and continued rains, it will require but 

 little care to protect them. The mould should not be shaken off; 

 all external moisture should be dried off by exposure to the sun and 

 wind, and the tubers in this state may be piled together with the 

 crowns upward. The collection should be looked over once or twice 

 during the winter, lest slugs or other vermin should be slyly com- 

 mitting ravages. 



IRIDS, IXIAS, SPARAXIS, AND TRITONIAS. 



flMONG- half-hardy and greenhouse Irids, Ixias, Sparaxis, 

 Tritonia, etc., are perhaps the most beautiful, and are 

 so easily managed, that persons who have once seen a 

 well-crrown collection are surprised that they are not 

 more" extensively cultivated — thriving, as they do, in 

 ordinary mixtures of soil, adapted for the flower garden borders, 

 when dry, and merely protected through winter v-ith a surfacing of 

 dry material, only requiring to be preserved from severe frosts until 

 spring ; when treated in a cold pit or frame, or placed on the coolest 

 part of the greenhouse platform, dispensing with all attention for 



