THE PURPLE CLEMATIS. 143 



useful flower. The free-growing sorts are amenable to the 

 simplest treatment; but it should be said that they flower 

 so freely that they must be well fed, or they will actually 

 die out and give no account of themselves at all. They 

 should be planted in well-prepared soil, consisting of good 

 loam, liberally enriched with half-rotten manure in fact, 

 such a bed as would be prepared for climbing roses or 

 wistarias ; for plants that grow fast and far need to be well 

 sustained at the root. These clematis, being planted in 

 the spring, will probably run ten or twelve feet the same 

 season, and will flower fairly weil. The second year they 

 will make a most vigorous growth and flower profusely. 

 The third year they may be expected to do still greater 

 things, and then they must have fresh food, or they will 

 begin to travel down hill. If left alone they will still 

 flower freely ; but the flowers will become smaller year by 

 year, and the plants will be bare of leaves except at the top. 

 If still left without help they will dwindle away, and die at 

 last through sheer exhaustion, unless indeed they happen 

 to be peculiarly circumstanced as regards the food their 

 roots can reach. 



Thus we reach the second chapter in the management. 

 When the plants are becoming " leggy " and the flowers 

 small, they should be cut down to within eighteen inches 

 of the ground. This may be best done at the end of the 

 year, or early in January. Some time in February, or early 

 in March, remove the top soil from over the roots, but 

 taking care to injure them as little as possible, and put in 

 its place a mixture of half-rotten manure and fresh turfy 

 loam; at the same time take out a trench two feet deep 

 and one foot wide at a distance of two feet from the stem 

 of each, and fill this with a similar mixture. Then spread 



