MONTHLY CALENDAR. 463 



thing was tlie injudicious selection of cuttings in the autumn before. There- 

 fore, if ever you meet such cases as these in your own place or practice, just 

 think upon what time you put in the cuttings, and you will find to a certainty 

 that your tale would tally with my story ; and the best thing you can now do 

 is to square your practice with my experience, and let every one of your 

 geranium-cuttings be well rooted by the last day of August ; and the sooner 

 you begin now the faster they will root, besides being in far better condition 

 than they will be a month hence. 



1388. "Then, as to the work itself, I have a most decided objection to 

 strike autumn geranium-cuttings in pots, or on the north side of a wall, or 

 anything, or under hand-glasses. But I see no objection to having them in 

 shallow turf, or any cold pits facing the south or west, provided the lights 

 are left off at night from 10 to 4 o'clock. The glass might be drawn over 

 them, and a single mat put over the glass ; but the mats should be off by 4, 

 and the glass not later than 7, all through August; but by far the best 

 place in the long run, — that is, looking to the winter and the planting-out 

 time, is the hottest and most sunny place in the garden. I am quite certain 

 of that. I have just now two or three kinds from seed, which are more dwarf 

 and much more tender than the Oolclen chain; and the cuttings from them 

 about St. Swithin's day could not be had over two inches long. Yet I put 

 them close by the side of the plants on a hot border under a wall ; but I put 

 some of the same kinds into a close cold frame, and I never put cuttings in 

 a hotter place in all my life than that cold frame was at that time. Those in 

 the sun rooted better and faster, however. I put three cuttings of the Golden 

 chain, and three cuttings of Harha-way, on the same border, and in the same 

 frame on the same day for an experimental trial, which is now going on. But 

 the same week I put in ninety cuttings of a particular seedling on that 

 border ; and not to lose one hour with them, I put a cradle over them, 

 on which I put mats from 10 till 4 o'clock, and they were slightly damped 

 twice a day, and the last thing at night, and not one single leaf drooped or 

 turned yellow. It was on a Saturday afternoon, and by next Saturday I did 

 without the mats, and the cradles were cleared off. The ninety cuttings were 

 most of them twice and three times the length and substance of the Imj)erlal 

 crimson cuttings last June twelve months, and the latter had no sort ot 

 sci'een or shelter, — they stood in the middle of the garden." 



T389. How often do we hear the wish expressed by people advanced in 

 years, for some of the flowers of their youth, — " the old-fashioned flowers of 

 childhood," which have been rooted out of so many gardens by more modern 

 importations, — the gentians, for instance. The common gentianella is seldom 

 grown now, and yet it was formerly grown with very little trouble : — Has the 

 more perfect system of drainage withdrawn the moisture it requires ? Nor is 

 the beautiful G. verna so plentiful as it ought to be. *' This little plant," 

 Baines tells us, in his "Flora of Yorkshire," " one of the most beautilul of 

 floras, grows well either in pots or the open border, if planted in a mixture of 

 fresh hazel loam and pebbles, even amid the smoke of a city. On the 

 Durham side of the Tees, thousands of acres are studded with its bright blue 



