122 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



in Ireland the.v are quite hardy. The speaker has some plants of 

 Hellehorus angustifolia, from which he has cut flowers considerably 

 larger than the white Ane7none Japonica. Few could appreciate 

 them without seeing them. The Hellebores flower about Christ- 

 mas, and are known as Christmas Roses. There are many inferior 

 varieties, of ding}' colors, and not worth growing ; that named is 

 the best. Frame culture requires the maximum of light, but is not 

 very difficult, attention to airing at all times, except on days when 

 zero weather prevails, being most important. 



Mr. Wood said that cold frames and hot-beds are two very dis- 

 tinct things. Only pansies and violets are grown by florists in cold 

 frames. He believed that better bedding plants could be grown in 

 hot-beds than in greenhouses ; cuttings might be struck, and the 

 whole stock grown in them. The}- may be used to great advan- 

 tage, when nearly exhausted, in hardening off plants to prepare 

 them for summer. He practises this method, and the plants grow 

 stout and stocky. 



Mr. Beard said that Mr. Wood had struck a very important 

 point. A greenhouse-grown plant is apt to flag when planted out- 

 doors, but a hot-bed, with a slight bottom heat, gives just what is 

 wanted to inure it gradually to the out-door air. He would plunge 

 tuberous rooted begonias in a nearly spent hot-bed and gradually 

 harden them off, and other plants the same, giving abundance of 

 air, and finally lifting the glass entirely before transplanting. This 

 is a secret that all have not learned. 



Joseph H. Woodford said that one of our best florists places 

 portable cold frames over his Lilies-of-the-valley, and gets flowers 

 two weeks earlier than the speaker can-, though his plants are in a 

 light, sandy soil, in full sunshine. The frames are placed over the 

 plants about the first of March, and the frost soon comes out, and 

 the plants begin to grow. The plants are in beds about six feet 

 wide. The lilies-of-the-valley are the worst treated of all flowers, 

 being put into corners and under the shade of trees, when they 

 should have full sunshine and light, warm, rich soil. It is a great 

 mistake to let them grow too thickly, as is generally done. They 

 should have alternate rows, a foot wide, cut out, so as to renew 

 the bed, and the dug spaces should be manured. The surplus 

 plants can be given to the neighbors. They increase like sti'aw- 

 berries, only that the runners are under ground. 



