288 FLOWER GARDEN. 



directions be wished > we would recommend the reader to 

 have recourse to Cushing's Exotic Gardener, or to the 

 more recent work by the late Mr. Sweet, entitled The Bo- 

 tanical Cultivator. The common means of propagation 

 is by cuttings, inserted in earth or sand, and covered, if 

 necessary, with bell-glasses. A few sorts are increased by 

 grafting or layering. Nearly all may be raised from seed, 

 large quantities of which are annually imported from 

 abroad. It may be added many green-house plants ripen 

 their seed in this country, and the collecting of such seeds 

 is too often neglected. 



Many of these plants require shifting and fresh earth 

 twice a year ; all of them should be repotted once a year 

 at least. It is the common practice to examine their roots 

 in spring or the early part of summer, and removing the 

 matted fibres, to put them into larger pots if necessary. 

 As room is extremely valuable in limited green -houses, it 

 is desirable that the plants should be kept of a moderate 

 size; and they are, therefore, rather to be under-potted 

 than otherwise. Many of the free-growing plants require 

 to be shifted again in August, at which period of the year 

 it is considered preferable to repot those which need to be 

 disturbed only once a year. During the summer months, 

 a great proportion of the inmates of the green-house are 

 placed in the open air, on a spot paved with flag-stones, or 

 laid with coal ashes, to prevent the entrance of earth-worms 

 into the pots, and the pots selected should be well sheltered 

 from high winds. Meanwhile, their place in the green- 

 house may be occupied by balsams and other tender annu- 

 als of a showy character. On the approach of winter, the 

 plants are again placed under cover. All that is neces- 

 sary in the management of the green-house in winter is to 

 keep up a steady but very moderate temperature, to pre- 



