FEBRUARY. 



599 



FEBRUARY. 



we have must be used to furnish what is 

 required to fill the garden next May. 



Bedding out, Seeds for. Seeds of lobelia, 

 pyrethrum, Golden Feather, and any other 

 plant required for edgings and bedding out 

 in quantity may now be sown. Tender 

 annuals and climbing plants may now be 

 placed in cold frames. 



Dahlias. Place dahlia roots, also, in 

 heat at this time, to excite healthy growth 

 for cuttings. 



Geraniums. Boxes of geranium roots 

 that have been stored in cellars through the 

 winter may now be brought out into the 

 light of day, and, if they have been care- 

 fully managed, the whole surface will be 

 alive with buds and shoots. A hundred 

 such roots will furnish a thousand well- 

 rooted plants before bedding-out time, and 

 leave the old roots still available the best 

 of all plants for the centres of beds. For 

 this purpose, however, they must be placed 

 in bottom heat until the shoots are two or 

 three inches long. Then thin the stools by 

 heeling off the cuttings that is, taking 

 them off quite close to the old stems. 

 Place the cuttings singly in small 6o-sized 

 pots, or three round a large 60, or in pots 

 or boxes of any size ; place them in a house 

 or frame with a temperature of 60, and in 

 three weeks they will be well rooted. If 

 a frame is used, it must have a little air 

 night and day, as geraniums are very im- 

 patient of a close atmosphere. 



Propagation on Slate. Those who hap- 

 pen to have a spare house in which bottom 

 heat under slate can be obtained may use 

 it for propagating bedding plants. On the 

 top of the slate two inches of rough leaf- 

 mould is strewed for drainage ; over that, 

 3 inches of sandy loam ; and on the top 

 of the loam, half an inch of common pit 

 sand. The cuttings are inserted with a 

 small dibber in this prepared bed. the 

 surface watered until it is perfectly level 

 a point of great moment. A temperature 



of 60 should be maintained, and the house 

 never shaded. In less than a month, 

 thousands of plants may be rooted in this 

 way with very trifling loss. 



Re-potting and Shifting. Cinerarias 

 and calceolarias in frames may be re-potted 

 or removed to glasshouse. Pelargoniums 

 should now be shifted for the last time 

 before blooming, into the pots in which 

 they are to blossom. 



Verbenas. Verbenas also root well in 

 the same way; but in bright weather they 

 require shading. However, for verbenas, 

 ageratums, pelargoniums, heliotropes, fuch- 

 sias, lantanas, petunias, c., in the spring, 

 no place is better than a pit or frame with 

 top or bottom heat of from 60 to 70. If 

 any or all of these have been gradually 

 hardened off in the winter, the store pots 

 ought to be now plunged into a temperature 

 of 50 or 60, for a week or fortnight before 

 the tops are removed for cuttings. Within 

 certain limits, the more tender the shoots 

 of such plants are, the more rapidly they 

 will emit roots. 



2. VEGETABLES. Asparagus. Early 

 asparagus is forced in the following manner 

 with most satisfactory results. In an 

 ordinary melon pit, about the beginning 

 of February, a quantity of stable dung is 

 set to work by turning and shaking in the 

 ordinary way to sweeten and regulate the 

 heat. By the middle of the month, as much 

 of this is thrown into the pit as will fill it 

 to within a foot of the glass. Two days 

 afterwards, this is covered with a layer of 

 3 inches of mellow soil. On a mild day 

 previous to this, a quantity of asparagus 

 roots should have been grubbed up from 

 an old bed these are the best plants for 

 forcing and placed ready. As soon as the 

 fermenting material has arrived at a safe 

 temperature, about 80, these roots are 

 packed thickly together on the 3 inches of 

 soil, and more soil thrown on them, just 

 sufficient to cover them, without increasing 



