2 1 8 Culture of the Orange. 



the Wild Orange. Sow the seeds early in the spring in a light but 

 not too sandy soil, and in pots (twenty-five to thirty per pot) ; put 

 the pots upon a dung-bed (lukewarm), and keep the soil fresh, but 

 do not have any. steam in the frame, and to prevent this give a 

 little air (one-half inch) to the front lights. When the seeds have 

 come up, encourage them to grow to three or four inches high. 

 Afterwards put them in a warmer bed, and keep a damp warm 

 atmosphere in the frame ; shade them against the burning rays of the 

 sun ; and when they are seven or eight inches high, give them a little 

 air, increasing it as they get stronger. Let them pass through the 

 winter in a greenhouse, where the temperature must not descend 

 lower than 40 Fahrenheit, and in early summer put them on 

 another hotbed in the open air plunged in leaf mould or cocoa 

 fibre. Leave them plunged on this hotbed through the summer, 

 and give them plenty of water, and from time to time a little 

 liquid manure. About the end of August in the same year graft 

 them by the same method as that practised for roses in the winter, 

 and put them on a hotbed, keeping as much damp vapour about 

 them as possible. Shade them during the sunshine, cover at night 

 and keep them close as long as the grafts are not well united 

 together ; they will be safe long before the early frost. Keep 

 them in the frame during the winter, and the next spring divide 

 and pot them in rich light soil mixed with a very little silver sand 

 to prevent the soil becoming hard : put the pots on a hotbed in 

 a frame, and after they are rooted give them plenty of air. In 

 the middle of June, make a hotbed in the garden and put them 

 on it without any covering whatever, giving plenty of water during 

 the hot weather, and give them three or four times a little liquid 

 manure to encourage active growth. Before the first frost they 

 must be housed, and they will do through the winter in a green- 

 house where the temperature is kept three or four degrees over the 

 freezing point. 



During the spring of the following year pot the plants afresh, 

 and place them on a hotbed covered with a frame ; keep them 

 closed until the roots begin to shoot, and give air successively ; 



