108 GARDENING FOR PLEASUBE. 



valuable than anything that money can buy. One of the 

 most common mistakes made by purchasers of plants in 

 our city markets, is that of almost invariably choosing 

 large plants, forced into flower. Such plants are usually 

 grown under a high temperature to get them in bloom 

 early, and many a housewife has found that the beautiful, 

 full-blooming plant of a Eose, Fuchsia, or Pelargonium, 

 which she so tenderly carried home, will in forty-eight 

 hours drop its flowers and leaves in the cooler and drier 

 atmosphere of her greenhouse, parlor, or garden. But 

 the florist is hardly to blame for this, though I know he 

 is often severely censured. Not one in a score of those who 

 purchase plants in spring will buy any plant unless it is in 

 bloom. The florist grows plants to sell, and must suit the 

 wants of his customer. This little divergence from the 

 subject in hand, is to show that the small slips or cuttings 

 that the amateur may raise himself, or which he can buy 

 from the florists in small plants at one-fourth of the price of 

 the forced plants sold in market, are in most instances bet- 

 ter than full-blown forced plants, costing fifty cents or a 

 dollar each. This is particularly so with monthly Eoses, 

 Verbenas, Geraniums, Fuchsias, Petunias, Carnations, 

 etc. Young plants of these, set out in May, if not more 

 than three or six inches high, will grow and bloom in 

 profusion the entire summer, while those which have 

 been forced, if they recover at all, will be greatly in- 

 ferior. 



We plant our young Eoses in May, usually in beds 

 four feet wide, setting the plants twelve inches apart each 

 way. They begin to bloom by the middle of June, and 

 continue without interruption until checked by frost in 

 the fall. And so with most other kinds here named ; 

 nearly all of which are from young plants, propagated 

 during the winter and spring months. The product of 

 cuttings or slips from a " stock" plant varies greatly, ac- 

 cording to the kind. A good healthy plant of Fuchsia, 



