CHAPTER IV 



SUMMER TREATMENT 



SOME weeks elapse, and then, in June, the time comes for the plants 

 to receive their final potting. They have been carefully tended ; 

 had all the air they needed ; have never been allowed to become 

 dry ; have been protected from the attacks of pests ; have had 

 additional ties, and now, in the full growth and vigour of their 

 youth, they have to be transferred to their flowering pots and given 

 several weeks' open-air treatment. The pots this time are 7 inch 

 or 8 inch, and the same scrupulous cleanliness as advocated for the 

 former potting must again be observed. The compost should be 

 nearly, but not quite, the same, and it should not be so finely broken 

 up. " The larger the pot, the coarser the soil," is an old maxim. 

 In this compost we substitute thoroughly rotted cow manure for 

 stable manure, unless the loam be very tenacious and heavy, and 

 at the same time introduce two other ingredients, viz. mortar 

 rubble and bones. Here, again, is the formulae : 



1. Ten barrowfuls of turfy loam, chopped up. 



2. Two barrowfuls of old cow manure, chopped up. 



3. One bushel coarse silver sand. 



4. Two pecks ashes from garden refuse. 



5. One bushel mortar rubble, broken small. 



6. Half bushel crushed bones, J inch. 



The process of potting is exactly the same as before, except that, 

 this time, we press the compost more tightly into the pot. Without 

 being as firm as we should make it for a chrysanthemum, it must, 

 none the less, be tight, for it has to maintain the plant through its 

 most strenuous and exacting phases. It has to carry a strong feeding 

 plant throughout the summer, on through the autumn, and the first 

 stages of flowering, then throughout the winter and spring, not only 

 producing the flowers and carrying new growths, but imparting 

 size, substance, and colour to the former (without which their value 

 would be diminished), and to the latter, strength, vigour and 



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