506 Cultivation of the Scarlet Pelargonium. 



ance, in order that the whole energy of the plant may be 

 directed to the main shoots and flower-trusses. By the mid- 

 dle or end of May, plants treated as above will be in excellent 

 order for the conservatory, and when placed there it is abso- 

 lutely necessary to avoid all extremes in regard to watering, 

 or the consequence will be that the foliage will assume a 

 sickly hue and prematurely drop off, and the flowers will not 

 be so persistent or long-lived as if the soil were kept in the 

 happy medium between wet and dry. These are facts borne 

 out by experience, and I am anxious to impress them on 

 the minds of my readers. 



When the beauty of the plants begins to fade they should 

 be turned out to harden off previous to their being cut back 

 in July, being intended for the first blooming in the follow- 

 ing May, and the conservatory should be replenished by a 

 batch cut down early in September. When the latter have 

 broken, are shook out and re-potted, they should be kept as 

 dormant as possible all winter. In April they must be shift- 

 ed into large pots, and at once introduced into the forcing- 

 house, where they should receive the same treatment as the 



former lot. 



The plants for the third succession must be selected 

 from those cut down in September ; they should be intro- 

 duced into the forcing-house in April along with the others ; 

 they should not be shifted then, but stopped back, and when 

 they have broken they should be shifted, and afterwards 

 treated in all respects as the former lots. 



The soil which I use for my plants consists of equal por- 

 tions of rich friable loam, leaf-mould, and well-decomposed 

 cow-dung; mixed with coarse silver sand and lime rubbish to 

 the amount of about one-eighth of the whole : these should 

 be well incorporated with a spade, but not sifted. For large 

 plants especially ample drainage is essential— say a few oys- 

 ter-shells, and over these an inch in thickness of the rough 

 siftings of old lime rubbish, then a layer of flaky hot-bed 

 manm-e. I would here remark that during their earlier stages 

 of growth, the soil should not be of so forcing or heavy a 

 character as for more advanced plants ; I mean it should con- 

 tain more sand and less dung. 



