AND CONSEEVATORT. 137 



they must have no check. The temperature must average 50° 

 by night and 60° by day, and a little air must be admitted 

 every day, and all day, unless the weather is very bad ; but it 

 must not reach the plants until it has acquired the warmth of 

 the house. The plants must have more water than others of 

 the same kinds that are at rest, and as the days lengthen in 

 spring it will be prudent to assist them with very weak manure 

 water, but this must not be given if they are evidently robust 

 and healthy. They should flower freely from October to 

 May, and plants in 32-size pots should be two feet high and 

 two feet through, and as gay as flambeaux at Christmas. 

 There are many varieties for forcing pelargoniums in the 

 market, but probably in our time we shall not see one to sur- 

 pass, or even equal. Gauntlet for early work. 



Zo^^ALS. — If we may be excused pronouncing eulogies on 

 this important section of the great family of geraniums we will 

 endeavour to make amends by concentrating in a few pages as 

 much sound information on their management as pot plants as 

 any less experienced pen would require a volume to unfold. 

 So, good amateurs, we begin by remarking that the first step 

 towards success is to make a good selection, for only about a 

 tenth part of all the zonals in the trade lists are worth the 

 trouble of pot culture. If you will have such sorts as Cliristine, 

 Tom Thumb, Stella, and Indian Yellow, you will waste all your 

 time in growing them, for good as they are when bedded out, 

 they are quite incapable of acquiring a respectable appearance as 

 pot plants. The achievements of cross-breeding in tiiis branch 

 of floriculture are truly wonderful, for not only are the finest 

 of the newer varieties characterised by flowers of great size, of 

 a perfectly circular outline, the petals of which overlap, so as 

 to produce a solid disk ; but the inequality of the petals has 

 been abolished, and they rebuke and confound the botanists 

 by presenting symmetrical flowers on plants that are desig- 

 nated pelargoniums. With such fine varieties as >S'/> Charles 

 Napier, Eichard Readly, lanthe, and Mrs. Sach, the amateur 

 may labour in hope that, in due time, he shaU be repaid, if he 

 faint not. 



When zonals are to be grown into specimens, it is a good plan 

 to plant them out the first season, and allow them one year's 

 growing in the open ground, to form a good foundation of 

 Btout wood. They should be put in good unmanured ground, 



