On the Cultivation of the Schizanthus. Itt 



Art. VII. On the Cultivation of the Schizanthus. By Mr. D. Hag- 



GERSTON, Gardener to J. P. Gushing, Esq., Belmont Place, Water- 

 town. 



Sirs, 



Your frequent solicitations, and the great admiration the plants of 

 the Schizanthus pinnatus under my care have received, induces me 

 to communicate to you my mode of treating this beautiful annual, 

 which, if you think will increase or perfect its cultivation by inser- 

 tion in your useful Magazine, it is at your service. 



I sow the seed in pots, (if in the winter or early in the spring, 

 plunged in moderate heat,) on a mixture of sand and leaf mould, 

 rather coarse, covering it lightly with fine sifted earth. When the 

 young seedlings shovv- four or six pinnate leaves, I pot them off into 

 small sized, or what we call No. 1 pots, using plenty of broken pots- 

 herds for drainage. I find sowing the seed on coarse leaf mould 

 is very beneficial at this shifting, as the small roots, penetrating the 

 lumps of earth, they can be potted off without receiving the least 

 check in their growth. The soil I grow them in, is composed of two 

 parts good rich loam, one part leaf mould, and one part sand, well 

 broken and mixed together, but not sifted ; care must be taken to 

 shift them into larger pots before the roots get too much matted. I 

 have always found that when they have grown in the same pot until 

 they become matted roimd the sides, after shifting, the plants will 

 turn yellow, and have a sickly appearance, and it is with difficulty 

 they regain their proper color and health. I continue to shift them 

 once a fortnight or three weeks, until they come into flower. 



Some of our plants are over six feet high, and have been covered 

 with flowers ever since the first of December, in such profusion, that 

 they are the first object which strikes the eye on entering the green- 

 house. The watering requires particular attention, for on this de- 

 pends their success altogether. I never give water until the plants 

 show they want it ; and many times when they are growing luxuri- 

 antly, I let them flag an hour or two ; but in this slate they must 

 not be exposed to the hot sun ; I then give a sufficient quantity of 

 water to penetrate to every part of the soil in the pot. For a long 

 time I was much troubled by the plants to appearance, damping off at 

 the surface of the soil, and thought it was caused by too much 

 water. By turning out several plants, however, as soon as they 

 showed symptoms of sickness, I found the abundance of their fibrous 

 roots prevented the water from penetrating more than two or three 

 inches into the soil, and so far the fibres were perfectly healthy, but 

 beneath this the mould was dry and the roots decayed. I was con- 

 vinced the disease began in the decayed fibres, and affected the 

 extremity of the main root; which continued to damp until it arrived 

 at the surface of the pot, when all communication with what few 



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