154 . Culture of the Chrysanthemum. 



hirsuta, which indicate a soil cool and moist. Last winter, 

 1838-39, was said to be more injurious than usual to carnations 

 in England and on the Continent; yet our stools, about 1500 in 

 number, continued to present all that perennial verdure and 

 luxuriance which mark the plants of a suitable soil and situation. 

 The ground of the nurseries being very diversified, plants of the 

 carnation have been tried on various qualities, such as dry, 

 sandy, and mossy, but with little success. That which was found 

 to destroy plants in the shortest time was a rich sandy soil, 

 which had received much manure a year previous to its being 

 cropped with carnations. In such, the plants grew well for one 

 year only, and no description of manure is now employed. Some 

 of the finest of the original seedling plants continue in vigour where 

 thej were transplanted, without manure, into newly trenched 

 ground eight years since; and, in all appearance, will continue to 

 flower in health for many years to come, without any ti'eatment 

 further than being tied up, and having their supernumerary flower 

 stems cut off. 



The laying of the plants takes place in the beginning of August, 

 when a small quantity of river sand is mixed with the soil under 

 the layei's of a few kinds that are slowest to root. It may here 

 be remarked, that the flowering of plants is in some measure in- 

 terrupted and weakened by their being laid. The young plants 

 are removed in October, and may be planted out any time in 

 open weather previous to the beginning of May, having all rotten 

 stumps and decayed substances cleanly removed. Perhaps there 

 is no plant which, after having become sickly, is more difficult to 

 get reestablished in health than the carnation; and, to sum up 

 our experience in its growth and management, we attribute the 

 luxuriance of the plants under our care to the circumstance of 

 their having been recently propagated from healthy seedlings, 

 cultivated in a soil peculiarly suitable, and never enfeebled by 

 that which is not congenial to their growth, 



Forres Nurseries, Dec. 1839. 



Art. XVIII. On the Culture of the Chrysanthemum. 

 By John Thackeray. 



I TAKE the liberty of making a few observations on the culti- 

 vation of that beautiful and late-flowering plant the chrysanthe- 

 mum, for I feel assured that very few persons indeed have ever 

 witnessed the magnificence and grandeur that it is capable of at- 

 taining. In consequence of its blooming at so late a season, it 

 is quite impossible to do justice to the plant, without the aid of 

 glass to protect the blossoms from snow, rain, wind, &c. In 

 spring, I get my young plants from cuttings, or by dividing the 



