252 DAHLIA PRESERVATION OF ROOTS. 



Lord Althorp dark puce. 

 Lord Liverpool superb purple. 

 Magnificent pink and white. 

 Metropolitan-blush delicate rose . 

 Metropolitan-perfection very dark puce. 

 Miss Pelhara fine rose. 

 Newick-rival rose finely formed. 

 Othello dark puce. 

 Peerless-white. 

 Perfection beautiful rose. 

 Picta-formosisima orange, with red stripes. 

 Polyphemus sulphur and lilac. 

 Q,ueen-of-dahlias white, with purple edge. 

 Rising-sun long scarlet. 

 Springfield-rival purple finely formed. 

 Yellow perfection very fine. 

 Village maid white and pink shaded. 



The preservation of the roots during winter is 

 attended with some trouble, which, perhaps some 

 cultivators will not bestow till by a fatal negligence 

 the whole live stock have perished, and either the 

 price of replacing, or the sad privation left next 

 summer, rouse the mind to the safe but necessary 

 precautions. The first thing is to secure the ripen- 

 ing of the roots. A slight frost blights the foliage 

 and flowers, but it does not follow that the roots 

 afflicted in the vigour of growth are so instantane- 

 ously ripened. The potato is allowed to stand after 

 the leaves are gone ; and so ought the dahlia for a 

 time, leaving the pith of the stalk, as a sponge, 

 to absorb and exhale the superflous moisture 

 whilst the sun helps that process by getting at the 

 ground through defect of the foliage. Wherefore, 

 though the beauty of the flower is gone, nature 

 ought not to be hindered in her work of ripening, 



