186 VILLA GARDENING part ii 



house. No class of plants has made more progress of late years, 

 and this has been mainly due to the perspicuity of a few market- 

 growers, who recognised its fitness for a market plant. It is especi- 

 ally an amateur's plant, as the small light houses of the villa 

 gardens are better adapted for the culture of this class of plants 

 than the larger, more lofty structures often to be found in extensive 

 gardens. 



Sowing the Seeds. — When a little warmth can be ensured 

 all winter to keep the plants moving on unchecked, the seeds may 

 be sown in August, in jjots or pans well tlrained, and filled to 

 within an inch of the top with sandy peat, covered with the same 

 kind of material, or else with pure sand, and the pots shoidd be 

 either covered with Moss till the seed germinates or else have 

 squares of glass placed on the top. The pots should be placed in 

 a gentle bottom-heat, if available ; or, if not, in some nice genial 

 situation, where the seeds vnll soon begin to move. The seeds 

 soon vegetate if kept warm and moist, and when large enough to 

 handle prick them oft' into pans or boxes of light rich soil about 

 an inch apart, still keeping them in a warm situation shaded 

 from bright sunshine. After they become established and gather 

 strength, each plant may have a pot to itself, putting them in 

 3-inch pots at first, and afterwanls shift into 5-incli ; the very 

 strongest may have an additional shift. As the season advances and 

 the sun gains power, they will do better in cold frames at first 

 kept rather close, but afterwards more freely ventilated. During 

 the hot days of July it will be advisable to syringe a little thin 

 limewash over the glass to soften the sun's rays, and the first week 

 in October they should be moved into a light warm greenhouse 

 near the glass to flower. Plants so treated, if all has gone well, 

 will make grand clusters of handsome foliage and brilliant-coloured 

 flowers. Nice little blooming plants can be obtained by sowing 

 the seeds in a hotbed in February, and growing them on rapidly 

 through the spring months and transferring to the frames when 

 hot summer comes. The plants producing the best flowers should 

 be placed on one side for seed-bearing, and as they seed freely and 

 can be grown into a flowering size in one year imder good manage- 

 ment, some growers do not save the old bulbs year after year, as 

 was commonly done twenty years ago. 



Treatment of Old Bulbs. — Shake the bulbs out after resting, 

 repot and plunge in Cocoa-fibre in a cold frame during summer. 

 During the flowering season maintain a genial buoyant atmo- 

 sphere ; if too mucli moisture is used, damp will lodge about the 

 crown and the flower stems, and occasionally the leaf stalks decay. 

 Loam and leaf-mould, or good peat in about equal portions, with 



