106 THE PARLOR GARDENER. 



Training Chrysanthemum Slips. 

 Chrysanthemums propagated by slips should be 

 treated in the same manner, according to the same 

 principles. If you belonged, ladies, to the good 

 society of Pekin, instead of to that of our coun- 

 try, the following is the way you would treat 

 your chrysanthemums : After having planted each 

 one of your slips in a deep and slender vase, you 

 would direct your care to the development of the 

 terminal shoots; as shoots made their appearance, 

 they would be pitilessly destroyed. The chrysan- 

 themum thus treated will gain a great deal in 

 height, and will end by forming at its summit a 

 single tuft of flowers, of which flowers one only 

 must be allowed to remain : this one \vill arrive 

 at a most extraordinary degree of development. 

 It is thus that the wives of the mandarins culti- 

 vate the chrysanthemum the flower of their 

 special predilection. Every year, in the great 

 cities of the Celestial Empire, there are exhibitions 

 specially for chrysanthemums, where every body 

 sends their flowers, and where prizes are decreed 

 for the tallest plants ; not as to the most beauti- 



