ally, to cut some of the weak branches with the flowers. Don't try to maintain a stock 

 of pansies from the same plants, after the first seeding. They have a strong tendency 

 to "breed back." In a few years they run into the commonest kinds. It will pay you 

 better to get the new, up-to-date, improved strains. They are kept up under the highest 

 state of cultivation and the most careful selection. Henderson, Dreer, Vick, Storrs & 

 Harrisson, Burpee and many other firms send out a high-grade class of seeds. If you 

 desire pansy plants, we would suggest that you write "The Columbian Pansy Farm, 

 Kent, Ohio." They expect to have from three to five million plants next September. 



Don't set young plants too deep ; they would be apt to rot off. Don't put a pansy- 

 bed in the front lawn, unless you are going to remove them in July and fill in with 

 coleus or something else for summer display. Don't plant the pansy in shade or "par- 

 tial shade," as recommended by many seed catalogues. You cannot get strong, healthy 

 plants, nor the rich shadings of flowers, without sunlight. The error of the "partial 

 shade" recommendation arises from the attempt to get the plant to work in July and 

 August. The almost total failure of hundreds of thousands of people with the pansy 

 ought to be enough to lead them to study the nature of the plant and adapt themselves 

 to its requirements. Let us hope that all will profit by the mistakes of the past. 



POT PLANTS. 



There is no greater failure to be found than with " potted plants." This is all to be 

 traced to root failure. To understand how that is brought about, read from page 40 to 

 56. It is utterly impossible for you to grow a healthy plant unless the roots are kept in 

 what the florists call a " working condition." 



In photo 159 you have a sickly geranium. It was grown in a 2j^ inch pot ; it is 

 eleven months old. You have seen dozens, possibly hundreds in similar condition. 

 Photo 1 60 presents to you a geranium nine weeks old. Compare the two. Well, you are 

 anxious to know the how and the why concerning such a marked contrast. It is easily 

 explained. When you put any plant into a flower-pot, and it begins to grow, the roots 

 strike out toward the sides, i. e., they go toward the heat by which the vessel is sur- 

 rounded. As soon as they reach the side they double back and are thrown up, down or 

 sideways. As long as there is moisture and the proper temperature all goes fairly well. 

 But I will suppose that the lady, after having attended the plants, turns her attention to 

 other duties, or, possibly, goes calling. The plants, we will presume, are in the window, 

 or, possibly, out on the flower-stand. The sun comes out real hot and strikes directly 

 on this particular flower-pot. What is the result ? Just this : the flower-pot becomes 

 heated up so intensely that you could not bear your hand on it, and every one of those 

 delicate little fibrous rootlets are destroyed ! What follows? Just this : one, two, three 

 or more of the lower leaves droop, turn yellow and drop off. Why? Because all the 

 pumps that had sent up the moisture are ruined ! You come along and exclaim : " Why, 

 dear me ! The plants are wilted." You hustle around and sprinkle them and thus save 

 them from total destruction. Do you know what such a shock to a plant signifies? It 

 means this : that you must wait, perhaps, from three to five weeks before the plant can 

 reconstruct the root force that you have allowed to be destroyed in probably not more 

 than fifteen minutes exposure. Repeat this two or three times and the season has gone 

 and you have had no good from your plant, and you tell Mrs. Jones and Mrs. Smith that 

 you " never have any luck with plants." Madam, you must discard all such ideas as 

 luck if you wish to succeed as a plant-grower. There is no luck that enters into it. The 

 luck that produced the healthy, vigorous young geranium in photo 160, consisted in 

 putting the flower-pot into a jardiniere, and thereby warding off the hot rays of the sun, 

 and preserved the roots cool and moist, about the same as they would be in the open 

 ground. 



You can ruin any pot plant by exposing it to the rays of the hot sun, or even a sur- 

 rounding hot, dry air, such as you find in an ordinary dwelling room, or by a low tem- 

 perature, which would chill and destroy the feeders. Geraniums, fuchsias, heliotropes, 

 79 



