Notes and Gleajiings. 53 



work, or wlierever there is a brisk heat to start them ; taking care, when the seed- 

 hngs are up, to keep them close to the glass to induce stubby growth. When 

 the plants are three or four inches high, pot them off singly into small pots, 

 using light loam and leaf-mould, with a sprinkling of sand. Place them on a 

 hot-bed, and keep them close to the glass as before, using a little shade in very 

 bright weather. When the plants have rooted sufficiently, they should be kept 

 rather dry and cool for a week or two, which will induce them to show a few 

 flowers ; when they can be sorted over, the worthless thrown away, and those 

 with double blossoms and the brightest colors retained. After this, the flowers 

 should be rubbed off, and the plants shifted into 32-sized pots, using richer soil 

 than before, and plunging them to the rim in an old hot-bed, or something of the 

 sort, where there is a little bottom-heat. Keep the lights on, and supply the plants 

 with abundance of water ; give plenty of air ; syringe them overhead every after- 

 noon ; and shut up for an hour or two, tilting the lights a little at night. 



As soon as the roots have reached the sides of the pot, and before the plants 

 become pot-bound, shift into the blooming-pots : ten-inch pots are the most 

 suitable for that purpose. Use a compost of two parts friable, turfy loam, one 

 of two-year-old dried cow-dung, and one of leaf-mould and sand. After potting, 

 plunge the plants as before, and shade them till established ; when the lights 

 should be taken off altogether, except in rough, stormy weather. They should be 

 liberally supplied with manure-water till they are placed in the house which they 

 are intended to decorate. The flowers should be picked off the main stems, 

 should they appear before the side-shoots are furnished with buds. 



A few plants treated as above will give more satisfaction than a larger num- 

 ber grown indiscriminately, and they will be good plants, and of select sorts ; 

 and coming in as they do, when the usual inmates of the greenhouse and con- 

 servatory are out of doors, they will be as highly appreciated as they are easily 

 grown. — English Journal of Horticulttire. 



[The balsam is generally grown with us as a border-flower ; but, grown in pots, 

 they are very ornamental. We have had them grow very large, and they never 

 fail to produce profusion of bloom.] 



Kalmia latifolia {Mountain Laurel) Culture in a Pot. — Give it a 

 somewhat large pot, drain it well, and use a compost of turfy peat chopped with 

 a spade, but not sifted. If you will do this, and plentifully supply the plant 

 with water when making new growths, and keep it at all times moist, with the pot 

 plunged to the rim in coal-ashes, in a warm, open situation, it will prove a free- 

 blooming shrub. For forcing, take up good, si rong, bushy plants, pot them in pots 

 sufficiently large to hold them comfortably, draining the pots efficiently, and use 

 a compost of turfy brown peat or bog-soil ; plunge the pots to the rim in coal- 

 ashes in a sheltered, open situation, and keep the plants well suppHed with water 

 throughout the summer, and at all times moist, and they will set plenty of bloom, 

 which will open by placing them in a house with a temperature of 50° by night, 

 and not exceeding 55°. Place them first in a house having a temperature of 

 from 40° to 45° for three weeks, and then introduce them into the above tem- 

 perature. Take them outside after blooming, and place them in the same situation 



