352 Retrospective Criticism. 



Do plants in a pit or pot require more, or less water, than -when 

 exposed in the open air ! At your leisure, do us the favor to give an arti- 

 cle on the treatment oi Azaleas, especially during winter, so as to produce 

 large and plentiful bloom, also tlie proper mode of cultivating the Daphne ! 

 What do you mean when you say in No. 4 or 5 pots? wc understand by 

 it here, 4 or 5 inches in diameter. If you would, at your convenience, 

 give an article on roses, daphnes, azaleas, jasminums, camellias, stat- 

 ing the mixture of earths most suitable for each, when, and how often 

 they require to be changed, the best mode, and the various methods em- 

 ployed in propagation, the errors most apt to be committed, and above all, 

 their treatment during the winter season, the proportion of water, heat, in 

 fact, all that tends to promote bloom : we are convinced you would gratify 

 your numerous readers, extend the circulation of the Magazine, and confer 

 an obligation on many Sincere lovers of the sweet and beautiful, July 31, 

 1843. 



[Nothing gives us more pleasure than to communicate information to 

 our readers, and more especially to our fair friends, when they request us 

 to do so. Our object is to render the growth of plants familiar to all, and 

 we lose no opportunity to convey our own ideas, or those of other culti- 

 vators, when we are enabled to do so. 



We duly commiserate the grievances whicii our lady amateurs of Wash- 

 ington, and other adjacent cities, labor under, in relation to the growth of 

 the pelargonium, and would willingly give them the aid of all our experi- 

 ence upon the subject, had we not already done so, in the most plain and 

 explicit manner. If our lady enquirers have long been attentive readers 

 of our Magazine, they certainly could not have overlooked the articles 

 which have appeared in our pages on the cultivation of the pelargonium. 

 In our Vol. III. p. 94, is an excellent article, by our intelligent corres- 

 pondent J. W. Russell, and at p. 292, of the same Vol., another, Ijy that 

 most successful cultivator of the pelargonium, Mr. Hogg ; and in Vol. V. 

 p. 203, we gave our own ideas at some length, beginning with the propa- 

 gation of the plants, and following through all the stages of growth, to 

 the period of blooming. To make any further remarks, at this time, 

 would only be a repetition of what we then stated, and we must therefore 

 refer our querists to the several articles above named, where they will find 

 all the information needed to cultivate the pelargonium successfully. As 

 our correspondents have named Mr. Teschemacher, perhaps he will grat- 

 ify them with his mode of cultivation, which may be different from our 

 own. 



There are, however, one or two questions which were not fully answered 

 in our article, which we now reply to, viz. : — 



1st. " What would be the effect if they [Pelargoniums] were not 

 pruned in ?" The effect would be that tlie plants would run up tall and strag- 

 gling, and be unsightly objects in the parlor or greenhouse. The best 

 cultivation would not make them ornamental plants, or produce good 

 blooms ; the plants should always be cut down in the month of June or 

 July. There is no other mode of making a good plant. 



2d. " What varieties produce the best seed ?" Most any of the varie- 

 ties produce seeds, if the flowers are properly fertilized ; but the best va- 

 rieties to seed from are those which have the finest siiaped and best marked 

 flowers. Garth's Perfection seeds freely, and is a good variety to raise 

 new sorts from. 



3d. "How grow the seed-bearers in the strongest manner?" As 



