THE GOEONILLA. 95 



praning as with it^ and if the shape and size are satis- 

 factory, and some increase of size may be allowed, it is 

 simply waste of time and waste of growth to prune them. 

 Why, except for some sufficient reason, destroy one scrap 

 of any plant that nature has laboured through a whole 

 year — perhaps through many years — to jiroduce for you ? 

 However, having pruned them, turn them out of the pots, 

 remove some of the old soil, and re-pot in clean pots of 

 the same size, and do not disturb them again until they 

 are growing freely. Then shift them into pots one size 

 larger. Thus, before the growing season is over you will 

 have promoted a free growth, and if this is well ripened 

 by sunshine and fresh air, and a slight diminution of the 

 water supply, a grand display of flowers will be seen in 

 due time. 



It was our good fortune to have for many years some 

 fine plants of coronilla and cytisus. They had the most 

 simple treatment ; they were always in perfect health, and 

 they flowered superbly. When they grew somewhat too 

 freely, we kept them two years in the same pots, without 

 any fresh soil. But the routine treatment consisted in 

 turning them out of their pots in the month of April, 

 and removing some of the old soil, and putting them Ijuck 

 into the same pots, or into pots one size larger, and fill- 

 ing in with a mixture of equal parts of loam, leaf-mould, 

 and rotten hotbed manure. They were in the open air, 

 on beds of coal-ashes, all the summer, and they usually 

 flowered in spring and in autumn, the spring bloom being 

 the most abundant. 



A coronilla is of necessity a garland flower or a flower 

 dedicated to the glory of the rustic hero, with which he 

 shall be crowned as with a crown of gold. In the com- 



