PREPARATION OF PLANTS FOR WINTER. 



349 



work, or a great deal of it. It is a law of 

 nature that action must be followed by rest. 

 After exhaustion, resulting from work, there 

 must be an opportunity for recuperation, 

 and this rest, this recuperation, can only 

 take place under favorable conditions. If 

 we try to rest amid noise and bustle, we 

 only half rest. If a plant tries to rest amid 

 conditions which prevail when g^rowth goes 

 on, it is never able to attain to that degree 

 of relaxation which must accompany the 

 phenomenon of perfect rest. In this respect 

 men and plants are alike. "All work and 

 no play make Jack a dull boy," they used to 

 say, and the truth of the saying is just as 

 pertinent to-day as it was years ag^o, and it 

 applies to all animate things. Overwork 

 prevents full development. It interferes 

 with g-ood work. Every expenditure of 

 vital force must be made up for by a period 

 of rest, in which the system is given a 

 chance to get back to the condition it was 

 in before the effort was made which broug-ht 

 on exhaustion. This law cannot be ignored 

 without disastrous results in any line of life. 

 But this law we constantly violate, and the 

 result is debility, if not positive disease, and 

 it is bui a question of time, if the violation 

 goes on, when positive disease must set in. 

 Hundreds of complaints similar to this 

 one come to me during the year. " What 

 can be the matter with my g-eraniums ? 

 They have hardly had a blossom on them 

 this winter. They are growing, but I 

 want flowers instead of leaves. They are 

 good flowering kinds I know, because they 

 bloom profusely all summer." Such a 

 complaint answers the question asked in it, 

 but the questioner does not know this. The 

 fact that the plants bloomed all summer 

 explains fully why they failed to bloom in 

 winter. They exhausted themselves then, 

 and they are obliged to take the winter to 

 rest in. If the owner had kept them from 

 blooming in summer, and had g-iven just 



enough water to keep them from drying- up 

 and no fertilizer to excite growth, and all 

 buds had been removed as soon as dis- 

 covered, the plants would have been nearly 

 dormant and would have remained so until 

 giving more water started them into more 

 active g-rowth. Then some good fertilizer 

 could have been given, or they could have 

 been repotted into fresh, rich soil, and by 

 Winter they would have been strong- and 

 vig-orous and anxious to flower. This is 

 the treatment all plants intended for winter 

 flowering- should have. Keep them as 

 nearly at a standstill during- the summer as 

 possible. Of course they will g^row some. 

 But whatever growth is made will be sturdy 

 and strong-, if slow, and they will come to 

 their winter's work in the best possible 

 condition. Most amateurs will see that 

 this is almost opposite to the treatment they 

 give their plants in summer. 



The production of flowers exhausts aplant 

 much more than the production of leaves. 

 Therefore, it is verv- important that all buds 

 should be removed at once, that all the 

 streng^th of the plant may g-o into its 

 branches. The ends of new branches should 

 be nipped off from time to time during- the 

 season, to force the plants to branch, and 

 thus become bushy and compact. The more 

 branches there are the g-reater the number 

 of blossoming- points. Geraniums will need 

 especial attention of this kind, because they 

 have a tendency, if let alone, to g^row up, 

 up, up, and form tall, leg^gy specimens with 

 few branches. Such a plant is never very 

 pleasing^, and it will have few flowers. But 

 a properly trained plant will be compact and 

 symmetrical, and otten it will have a dozen 

 or twenty clusters of flowers on it at a time. 

 The superiority of such a specimen will be 

 readily apparent to any one seeing it along-- 

 sidea specimen of the untrained geranium. 

 E. E. Rexford, 

 in How to Grow Flowers. 



(7b be continued.^ 



