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easiest of all the forms in which to train potted 

 ivies is that of the pyramid. Train the young 

 plants upright and orderly two seasons, then 

 shift them into 8 or 10 inch pots, using a firm 

 loamy soil, and a liberal proportion of manure 

 in the case of the green-leaved kinds. Insert a 

 few straight stakes, three or four feet long, and 

 to these train the leaders upright, and take the 

 side-shoots round and round, which will both aid 

 in furnishing the stakes, and at the same time 

 check their growth. In the autumn, when they 

 have done growing, draw the stakes together at 

 the summit, and tie them firm. Free growth 

 should be promoted until the plants have attained 

 a sufficient size to produce the effect required of 

 them, and thenceforward they may be kept in the 

 same pots three or four years without any change 

 of soil. Should they, however, show, by lack 

 of vigour, that the soil in the pots is exhausted, 

 they should be carefully turned out of the pots 

 in March or April, and a great part of the old 

 soil be removed from their roots, and then be 

 repotted into the same pots with fresh substantial 

 soil, which must be rammed in as the work pro- 

 ceeds. It will be well, of course, to scrub the 

 pots inside and out before replacing the plants 

 in them. During the summer these pyramids 

 should be plunged in tan or cocoa-nut fibre refuse 

 as deep as the rims of the pots, and have water 

 regularly. They afford invaluable materials for 

 the decoration of entrance-halls, corridors, and 

 flower-beds in winter, and ought to be employed 

 in hundreds and thousands of places where at 

 present they are utterly unknown. 



BUSHES may be formed of both [the arbores- 

 cent and the climbing kinds. The first will require 

 no training ; the second must be trained with care. 



Skeleton plant of Hedera coriacea, to show 

 the mode of training to form a pyramid. 



