Culture of the Salvia. 59 



than one half, heing careful to leave the strongest for seed. Where 

 it is the practice to sow the Ten-week Stock annually, in beds in 

 the open ground, either in drills or at broad-cast, I shall recommend 

 a process which is rarely if ever attended to: when the plants are 

 two or three inches in height, cut under them with a sharp spade 

 about three inches deep, so as to raise them up a little ; this will be 

 found to be of great service to the plants. Every one knows that 

 the Stock is very deficient of fibrous roots, and a great many plants 

 are lost, especially if the season is dry at the time of transplanting. 

 By cutting the tap roots, it will remedy the evil ; it being a means 

 of making the plants protrude a large quantity of mouths or feeders, 

 and consequently grow more stocky and bushy. By raising the 

 plants carefully with a trowel at the time of transplanting, and this 

 judiciously done, there is but little fear of success. 



J. W. Russell. 

 Mt. Auburn, Cambridge, Jan. 13, 1834. 



Art. IX. Cultivation of the Salvia splmdms, fulgcns and mnicana. 

 By the Conductors. 



These brilliant ornaments of the flower-garden (particularly that 

 old inhabitant the splendens), are of the easiest cultivation. The 

 fulgens is of late introduction, flowering we believe in the vicinity of 

 Boston for the first time, last season. The mexicana has been also 

 lately introduced. They are equally ornamental in the green-house, 

 as well as the pleasure-ground. The fulgens is not so free a bloomer 

 as the splendens, it requiring more heat: the mexicana is of very strong 

 and tall growth. They should all be propagated as follows: — take 

 off" the cuttings at a joint, about four inches in length; trim off" the 

 lower leaves, and insert them in good rich soil, composed of loam 

 and leaf mould, equal parts, in pots of about six inches diameter, 

 ten or twelve in a pot. If this is done during the months of Febru- 

 ary, March or April, they will require the aid of a hot-bed to make 

 them strike freely. After they are rooted, which will in general 

 be in about a fortnight, they should be potted oft' into pots called 

 No. 1 (about three inches in diameter), and again plunged into the 

 bed till they are well established. When the roots fih the pots, 

 they should be shifted into the next size; this should be repeated 

 till the weather is warm enough to turn them into the border. They 

 should then, as they grow, be tied to a stake, as they are very brittle, 

 and hable to be broken by the wind. They will thus treated, bloom 

 finely during the autumn ; the splendens with its long spikes of glit- 

 tering scarlet, the fulgens with its dazzling crimson, and the mexi- 

 cana with its rich blue flowers. 



