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nineteen parts out of twenty. From one 

 to five per cent, is the usual proportion 

 in fertile soils. Calcareous soils are 

 rarely productive ; they are so feebly 

 retentive of moisture that the crops 

 upon them are burnt up in summer; 

 and they reflect the sun's rays so fully, 

 that vegetation is late upon them in 

 spring. The best addition to such soils, 

 to improve their staple, is clay. 



CALCEOLARIA. Thirty-one spe- 

 cies, and many varieties. Chiefly green- 

 house herbaceous perennials, or ever- 

 green shrubs. Cuttings or seeds. Any 

 rich, open, sandy soil. 



Characteristics of Excellence. — " The 

 plant should be shrubby ; the foliage 

 thick, and dark green ; the habit bushy ; 

 the wood strong. 



"The flower-stems should be short 

 and strong; the foot-stalks of the 

 blooms elastic, and branching well 

 away from each other, to form a rich 

 mass of flowers without crowding. 



" The individual blooms depend en- 

 tirely on the form of the purse, and it 

 should be a perfect round hollow ball. ! 



" The orifice and calyx cannot be too 

 small, nor the flower too large. The 

 colour should be very dense, and whe- 

 ther it be a spot in the middle, or stripes 

 or blotches, should be bold and well 

 defined, and the ground should be all i 

 one colour or shade, whether white, ! 

 straw-colour, sulphur, yellow, or any ' 

 other. The colour of a self should be 

 brillianl, and all over the same actual , 

 shade. Dark flowers, with pale edges, 

 or clouded or indefinite colours, are 

 bad, and unfit to show. The bloom 

 should form one handsome bunch of 

 pendant flowers, which should hang 

 gracefully, and be close to each other ; 

 the branches of the flower-stems hold- 

 ing them out to form a handsome spread- i 

 ing surface." — Hort. Mag. j 



Raising from Seed. — " The pods j 

 should be taken oft' when turning yel- 

 low, and laid to dry on a large sheet of 

 paper, under a hand-glass, that the 

 wind may not disturb it. In the early 

 spring this may be sown thinly in pans 

 well drained with crocks, and covered 

 with a hand-glass, in the green-house 

 or under the glass of a garden-frame; 

 when they have attained a suflicient 

 size to handle, they may be pricked out 

 into other seed-pans, an inch apart, and 

 allowed to grow until they are large 

 enough to be in each other's way. They I 



may then be potted in sixty-sized pots, 

 and placed in a pit or frame, there to 

 grow, under tolera^y attentive manage- 

 ment as to being kept neither dry nor 

 wet. If the green-fly make its appear- 

 ance, they must be fumigated with to- 

 bacco smoke, not too strongly, as it has 

 been known to kill all the young shoots. 

 If the roots reach the sides of the pot, 

 and begin to mat a little, they may be 

 changed to size forty-eight; and if they 

 should after that grow still stronger, 

 they may be once more shifted to size 

 thirty-two, in which they will bloom to 

 great advantage." — Hort. Mag. 



Cuttings and Division. — " About the 

 middle of July, when the plants have 

 done flowering, preparation should be 

 made for propagating the different kinds 

 — the herbaceous, by dividing the roots; 

 the shrubby, by cuttings. The plants 

 should be encouraged in their growth, 

 a short time previously to this opera- 

 tion, by judicious watering, the remain- 

 ing flowers picked off, and the stems 

 allowed to die down, that no nourish- 

 ment may escape. The cuttings from 

 the shrubby sorts should be struck 

 singly in small sixties, in a frame with a 

 gentle bottom heat, kept shaded, and 

 rather sparingly watered ; when rooted, 

 air may be more freely admitted, and 

 the plants gradually hardened. As soon 

 as the roots appear through the soil, 

 they will require shifting into forty- 

 eights, and to be placed in a house 

 where they may receive plenty of top 

 air, side air and drafts being prejudicial 

 to the free growth of the Calceolaria ; 

 when the sun bears considerable power, 

 the plants should remain on the shady 

 side of the green-house; the tempera- 

 ture of the house should be from 45° to 

 503."— Gnrd. Chron. 



Layering. — A writer in the same 

 work, who thoroughly understands his 

 subject, says : — " At the time they have 

 done flowering, which is under ordinary 

 circumstances about the latter end of 

 June, divest them of their flower-stalks 

 and dead leaves, and top-dress them 

 for about an inch deep, with silver-sand 

 and yellow loam in equal portions, 

 taking care that all the ripe joints of 

 the young shoots are covered for about 

 half that depth ; place them in a cool 

 and shaded situation, until the begin- 

 ning or middle of September, giving 

 occasional waterings during that period. 

 By this time most of the shoots so co- 



