THE CAN Am ATT HOKTICFLTrRTST. 



93 



PERSIAN CYCLAME^S. 



Persian Cyclamens are beautiful little 

 plants and exceedingly profuse bloomers 

 between Januaiy and March. 





Pkhskvn Cyclamens. 



I SOW my Cyclamens in a pot or pan 

 of light soil as soon as I can get the 

 seeds, say in February or March, and 

 soon after they germinate prick them 

 off into small pots, then pot them 

 singly into 2| inch pots and afterward 

 into 3 inch ones. I endeavor to keep 

 these voung plants growing all sum- 

 mer, and in fall several of them may 

 need to be i-e-potted into 4-inch ])Ots, 

 In winter keep them near the glass, 

 faintly shaded from strong sunshine 

 and moderately moist, most of them 

 will blossom. After they have done 

 blooming say in April, I give them 

 rather less water than before, but do 

 not dry them off thoroughly, and in 

 May, plant them out in an open frame ; 

 any piece of garden ground would do as 

 well. I take no further heed of them 

 during the summer months, except keep 

 away weeds. 



About the end of Jul}^ or in August, 

 they will begin to gi-ow ; then I lift 

 and pot them, using well-drained pots 

 and rich earth, and place them close 

 together in a cold frame. For some 



time I water sparingly ; but as they 

 advance in growth, more copiously. 

 They are taken indoors before there is 

 danger from frost. Theseshould blossom 

 full in January, February and March. 

 By raising a few seedlings every year 

 ( and every seed shoiild c nie up with- 

 out any trouble) you can always have 

 a young, vigorous set of plants. I do 

 not care about keeping Cyclamens over 

 three years old. In potting Cyclamens 

 1 like to have the corm rest upon the 

 to]) of the soil, or, at most, be buried 

 but to half its depth. But when I 

 plant them out in the frames, I place 

 the " roots " about an inch or half an 

 inch beneath the surface. Some grow- 

 ers prefer growing their Cyclamens 

 altogether in pots.— W. Falcoxek, in 

 A vierira n Garden. 



THE RED SPIDER. 

 The red spider is not correctly speak- 

 ing an insect, though it is commonly 

 spoken of as such, neither is it a spider, 

 as its name would imply, but an acarus 

 or mite. It is a most destructive and 

 and troublesome pest wherever it makes 

 its jjrsence felt; it by no means confines 

 itself to a few kinds of plants, but it is 

 very indiscriminate in its choice of food, 

 and it attacks both plants grown under 

 glass and thnse in the open air. When 

 these pests are pi-esent in large numbers 

 the leaves on which they feed soon pre- 

 sent a sickly yellow or scorched appear- 

 ance, for the supply of sap is drawn off 

 Vjy myriads of these little mites, which 

 congregate on the undersides of the 

 leaves, where they live in a very deli- 

 cate web, which they spin, and multiply 

 very rapidly ; this web and the excre- 

 ment of the red sj)ider soon choke up 

 the pores of the leaves, which, deprived 

 of their proper amount of sap, and un- 

 able to procure the carbon from the at- 

 mosphere which they so much need, are 

 soon in a sorry plight. However pro- 

 miscuous these mites may be in their 



