S8 ALPINE FLOWERS. Part I, 



such difficult subjects, since a failure with them is apt to be 

 disheartening. I believe that a more liberal culture than is 

 generally pursued is what is wanted for these more difficult 

 .kinds, and such as are usually considered impossible to culti- 

 vate. The plants are often obtained in a delicate and small 

 state; then they are, perhaps, kept in some out-of-the-way 

 frame, or put where they receive but chance attention ; of, 

 perhaps, they die off from some vicissitude, or fall victims to 

 slugs, which seem to relish their flavour, considering how clean 

 they eat off' some kinds ; or, if a Httle shaky about the roots, are 

 interred by earth-worms, whose casts serve to clog up the drain- 

 age, and thus render the pot uninhabitable. With strong and 

 healthy young plants to begin with, good and more liberal cul- 

 ture, and plunging in the open air in beds of coal-ashes through 

 the greater part of the year, the majority of those supposed 

 to be unmanageable would soon flourish beautifully. I have 

 taken species of Primula, usually seeii in a very weakly and poor 

 state, divided them, keeping safe all the young roots, put one 

 sucker in the centre, and five or six round the sides of a 32- 

 sized pot, and in a year made ''perfect specimens'' of them, 

 with, of course, a greater profusion of bloom than if I had 

 depended on one plant only. Annual or biennial division is an 

 excellent plan to pursue with many of these plants, which in a 

 wild state run each year a little farther into the deposit of decay- 

 ing herbage which surrounds them, or, it may be, into the sand 

 and grit which are for ever being carried down by natural agen- 

 cies. In our long summer some of the Primulas will make a 

 tall growth and protrude rootlets on the stem — a state for which 

 dividing and replanting firmly, deep down to near the collar, is 

 an excellent remedy. 



There are many plants with which an entirely different 

 course must be pursued, which demand to be permanently esta- 

 blished, Spigelia marilandica, Gentiana verna, G. bavarica, and 

 Cypripedium spectabile, for example. The Gentians are very 

 rarely well grown, and yet I am convinced that few will fail 

 to grow them if they procure in the first instance strong esta- 

 blished plants ; pot them carefully and firmly in good sandy 

 loam, well drained, using bits of grit or gravel in the soil ; 

 plunge them in sand or coal-ashes to the rim, in a position fully 

 exposed to the sun ; and give them abundance of water during 

 the spring and summer months, taking, of course, all necessary 



