THE PRIMULA. 



123 



The bulbs will live to a great age, keep sound, and 

 flower annually, if not injured at the crown. If this is 

 destroyed, it is worth nothing. After the Cyclamen 

 has done flowering the bulbs may be put outside, from 

 the month of May till October, behind a north wall or 

 in a shady place, and some manure-water should be 

 given it, to help the development of a good flowering 

 crown for the following season. 



The seed should be sown in the spring, about the end 

 of February, in deep seed-pans filled with fine sandy 

 peat and pulverised manure of equal parts, or maiden 

 loam and leaf-mould and silver sand of equal parts. 

 Make the soil firm, sow the seed, cover it half an inch 

 with soil, and set it in a good lively heat till it is up, 

 when the pans should be put in a little lower tempera- 

 ture until large enough to prick off into other pans. 

 Or they may be planted out in a fine bed of the above 

 compost till the autumn, when they may be taken up 

 carefully with balls of earth, and put into small pots, 

 and then placed in a warm house or pit, where they 

 will give some little flower ; and by bedding them out 

 the next summer under a north wall in a bed of leaf- 

 mould with a little maiden loam mixed with it — one 

 part to three of the leaf-mould — the bulbs will be good 

 flowering corms by the autumn. 



The Primula (Primulacece). 



The Primula Chinensis, or Si?ie?isis, as it is called, 

 has been brought to a pitch of perfection, combined 

 with the greatest diversity, never perhaps reached be- 

 fore. This division of the genus contains enough 

 diversity of colour and character to constitute sufficient 

 variety for the most fastidious taste, as a collection of 

 plants for a house, without any other. Nearly eveiy 

 shade of colour may be had from a five-shilling paper 

 of carefully saved seed from a good collection, of which 

 there are now many in this country. 



If large specimens are required, the seed should be 

 sown as early as March, and grown freely, the flower- 



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