414 The Cultivation of the Cyclamen. 



period without water ; but should have just enough to keep 

 the leaves from dying off completely. The less they can 

 have, so that this is secured, the better. 



Mr. Mitchell, of Stokeley, some few years since, proved 

 peat soil to be very conducive to the growth of these plants. 

 He states, that although for many years he has raised seed- 

 lings by the thousand, he had never been enabled to bloom 

 them in less than three or four years from the seeds (except 

 C. comn) until he used peat soil in a very rough state, mixed 

 with sandy loam, in the proportion of six parts of the former 

 to one of the latter. The seeds were sown in June, as soon 

 as they had ripened, and the pots containing them set into a 

 cool frame till the March following, when many of the 

 C persicum produced flowers ; this was before they were 

 one year old. The peat earth employed was full of fibre, 

 but with scarcely any sand, and was obtained from a dry 

 elevated situation where the common heath abounds. 



TREATMENT OF THE MATURED PLANTS. 



There is some slight difference in the management of the 

 young plants and of those which have reached maturity. 

 Supposing the plants to have gone on favorably until they 

 have reached the commencement of the third season, when 

 they will have formed pretty strong tubers, you must now 

 use for them the following compost : — one fourth of maiden 

 loam, one fourth peat earth, one fourth silver sand, and one 

 fourth of well decomposed leaf soil or cow-dung ; these 

 ingredients must be well incorporated preparatory to repotting 

 the tubers, which is the next process. Turn them out of 

 the pots, and if the roots are sound and healthy, repot them, 

 or at least the strongest of them, into six-inch pots. In doing 

 this, take away as much of the old soil as can be removed 

 without injuring the roots. Prepare the pots, which should 

 be new or clean washed, carefully ; use plenty of potsherds ; 

 about one fourth of the depth of the pots should be filled 

 with this material ; then put a layer of the roughest fragments 

 of the soil on the potsherds, and on this use the ordinary 

 mass of soil, which should not be rubbed or sifted very fine. 



