THE FIG. 187 



the training most desirable for pot - plants for the 

 present, as their cultivation in pots will embrace that 

 point also. Their natural inclination, when in a young 

 state, to grow too rampant, makes it most desirable that 

 plants being reared for planting in borders should be 

 induced, if possible, to form a stubby habit of growth 

 before being planted out. Therefore I do not recom- 

 mend their being planted the year they are propagated, 

 but to be confined to a rather small pot with poor soil. 

 When they have formed a leading shoot to the desired 

 height, been stopped, and have broken two or three 

 buds at the top, shift them out of the 6 -inch into 8- 

 inch pots, and place them in a light house, where they 

 will make short-jointed and well-ripened wood. 



If, after being stopped, they break into more than 

 three growths, rub off all except the leader and one on 

 each side of the stem. Should any of them break 

 with less than three, cut a nick above the one that is 

 desired to break, and more than likely it will come 

 away. When the leader has grown about 15 inches, 

 stop it and the two laterals again, to cause another 

 pair of lateral growths to break horizontally, and with 

 another leader, thus laying the foundation for their 

 being trained horizontally to the wires of the fig-house. 

 They can be kept growing thus in a temperature not 

 quite so high as for vines till the middle or end of 

 August, after which they will require more air and a 

 drier atmosphere, in as light a place as possible, to 

 thoroughly ripen their growths. It is astonishing the 

 immense bushes that can be formed the first season 

 even from single eyes, if shifted on and pinched ; but 

 the object in the case of the plants now under con- 

 sideration, as has already been stated, is not so much 

 size the first year, as a well- compacted growth, and a. 



