PLANTS SUITED FOR SUMMER DECORATION. 109 



say eighteen inches high, will easily give forty cuttings ; 

 ■while a Eose or Geranium of the same size will not af- 

 ford half that number. A fair average for medium 

 sized plants of those named would be ten cuttings or 

 slips to each plant, so that, starting with 100 plants 

 in the fall, by May 1,000 would be no unreasonable in- 

 crease to expect ; or in that ratio, be the number more 

 or less. 



If large quantities of plants are wanted for summer dec- 

 oration by those who have neglected to propagate them, 

 or did not wish to do so, they should purchase young 

 plants in March or April, at which time the florists, to 

 make room in their houses, sell them at very low rates, 

 usually not more than one-fourth of the price that the 

 same plants forced into bloom in May would cost. Such 

 plants at that season are grown mainly in two and three- 

 inch pots. If taken from these pots, say by 1st of April, 

 and kept in any cool room or greenhouse, where the tem- 

 perature will average forty-five or fifty degrees at night, 

 by the time of setting out in May they will have formed 

 far better plants than those pushed rapidly into flower in 

 May. Or, in other words, $10 expended in March or 

 April will buy plants which, if cared for as above de- 

 scribed, will by the middle of May be of more value 

 than the plants $50 would buy at that date from the 

 same florist. There are tens of thousands of lovers of 

 flowers spread over the land so situated that they have 

 neither the means nor the opportunity to get the green- 

 house or bedding plants above described for the decora- 

 tion oi flower borders in summer; but by the use of an- 

 nual flower seeds properly selected, a blaze of flowers 

 may be kept through the entire months with very little 

 care and at a trifling cost. 



The list of annuals here given embraces nearly all the 

 best leading kinds, though there are hundreds more, de- 



