4o8 The Canadian Horticulturist. 



the soil never gets dry so as to cause the leaves to flag in the least, and in six 

 weeks after potting begin to give manure-water each alternate time they require 

 watering, using it somewhat weak at first and stronger as the season advances. 

 See that the shoots are kept well supported with sticks strong enough to prevent 

 their being broken by the wind. In autumn, as soon as the buds are large 

 enough to admit of thinning, this must be attended to, or the flowers will be 

 small. It is not well to take the plants indoors sooner than necessary, but do 

 not let them remain out to get frozen. When housed they must not be stood 

 too close, and should have plenty of air day and night, with a little heat turned 

 on if the weather is frosty. If very big flowers of the large varieties are 

 required, the plants should be confined to from three to five shoots each with 

 all buds removed, except one to each shoot. If miniature plants in small pots 

 are wanted, it is best to plant some out in the open ground early in Rummer, 

 and when the flowers are set bend the shoots down and layer them in the soil ; 

 in a month or five weeks they will have made enough roots to allow of their 

 being cut from the old plants and put in six-inch pots, and if well supplied with 

 manure-water they will bloom well. — American Agriculturist. 



The planting of spring-flowering bulbs is in order. All varieties of hya- 

 cinths, tulips, crocuses and snowdrops that do well in the house or greenhouse 

 in the spring do equally well planted out of doors. More than that, many var- 

 ieties that are hardly good enough for pot culture grow and blossom beautifully 

 when planted out in the garden. If you want to fill your flower beds with hya- 

 cinths or tulips in set fashion, each variety all of a size and the plants exactly so 

 far apart, then you must get good quality bulbs to insure evenness in size and 

 opening ; but if it is a gay ribbon, a brilliant and prolonged display you want, 

 then plant common mixed bulbs, the hyacinths by themselves, the tulips by 

 themselves, thickly and in six or eight inch wide belt, and you are apt to have 

 a fine display of gorgeous color from early till late, and it looks well. The 

 polyanthus narcissus are not hardy on Long Island, but the single and double 

 daffodils, jonquils and orange and sulphur phccnix sorts and their allies are, and 

 everyone of them is both beautiful and desirable. 



Pruning Roses. — A pleasant writer in a foreign journal supplies food for 

 thought for those who would like to know how to prune roses : Pruning, too, 

 is quite a woman's work, provided her heart is hard. A well-pruned rose garden 

 looks such a wilderness in March, as wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow of rose wood 

 goes away. No rule can be laid down for this work, practical observation is the 

 only recipe, and knowledge of the habit of the variety. Amateurs usually fail by 

 doing too little, and leaving too much badly ripened wood and weak growths 

 crowded together. A friend unused to rose growing prayed her husband just to 

 spare her one bed so that she might have a few early blooms. He was a silent 

 man ; smiled, and did her bidding. She got her early blooms, but oh ! such 

 frost-injured, insect-mangled specimens that she could not bear to look at them. 

 Next year she used a sharp knife fearlessly, and then had " glorious roses." 



