92 FAMILY RECEIPTS. 



required on the same general principles applied to 

 trees. Where very large flowers are wanted, it 

 is obviously advantageous to prevent the plant from 

 expanding its vigour in too great a number of them, 

 or in mere shoots and leaves. Top-heavy plants, 

 as some thistles, solidagos, &c. may require to be 

 lightened, and almost all are benefitted by thinning 

 out a part of their shoots. In some annuals, thin- 

 ning is efiected both by eradication and pruning, 

 and in the more delicate sorts by pinching off the young 

 shoot, when an inch or two high. Creepers, climbers, 

 and shrubs planted against walls or trellises, either on 

 account of their rarity, delicacy, or to conceal the ob- 

 ject against v/hich they are placed, require different 

 degrees of training; those which attach themselves na- 

 turally, as the ivy, merely require to be occasionally 

 guided so as to induce a regular distribution of their 

 shoots; the others must be treated like fruit-trees, train- 

 ing thinly, if blossoms are the object; and rather thicker, 

 if a mass of foliage be what is chiefly wanting. "Edg- 

 ings of ail sorts," Marshall observes, "should be kept in 

 good order, as having a singularly neat effect in the 

 appearance of a garden. The dead edgings will some- 

 times, and the live edgings often, vvant putting to rights; 

 either cutting, clipping, or making up complete. Where 

 there are no edgings, or but weak ones, let the earth 

 bordering on the walks be kept firm, and now and then 

 worked up by line in moist weather, beating it smooth 

 with the spade." 



Alpine plants require protection from the cold, by 

 covering with snow, or by hand-glasses, or frames during 

 winter; and from heat, by screens to produce shade 

 during summer. The roots of many sorts require to be 

 protected by ashes, rotten tan, or litter, from frost, and 

 the tops of others both shrubs and plants, to be guarded 

 by fronds of fern, fir-branches, mats, or portable glass- 

 cases, from rain, hail, and cutting winds. Great care 

 must be taken to protect pots of plants from frost, by 

 always keeping them plunged in earth or some noncon- 

 ductor; for no state in which a plant can be placed is 

 so obnoxious to the baneful influence of congelation as 



