VH.] 



LIST OF FLOWERS. 



269 



fitting for the purpose of potting. Slips you pull off with your 

 hands, and offsets cut off with a sharp knife ; both in the end of 

 July, or beginning of August. The soil most suitable to this plant 

 is a cool vegetable one ; and the artificial mixtures are very 

 numerous, but the one in most general use is half fresh garden 

 mould and half well-rotted cow-dung. A little sea sand throw^i 

 in amongst it keeps it free. Auricula pots should be six inches 

 deep, and as large in circumference at the bottom as at the top ; 

 water only in dry times ; and, in continued wet, lay the pots on 

 their sides, unless you have a covered stage for them. Wooden 

 bars to stand the pots on are very useful. They prevent too great 

 a moisture getting at the roots of the plant, which is the case 

 when the pots stand on the ground, and they also prevent the 

 worms getting in. A slight covering during the frosts of winter 

 is necessary for a fine blow. Those plants which are planted out 

 in the border should be taken up and parted every three years, or 

 they become weak, blow but little, and shortly die. 



437. BALSAM. — Lat. Impatiens halsamina. From the East 

 Indies. A most beautiful, but rather tender, annual plant. Well 

 known to almost everybody, and almost universally cultivated, and 

 is very ornamental in the flower borders, in the green-house, and 

 in the parlour. It blows in July, August, and September, double 

 and single flowers, red, pink, white, or variegated. The best way 

 of propagating is by sowing the seed early in March in a moderate 

 hot-bed. By April, the plants must be potted off singly, and then 

 struck in the hot-bed again ; then accustom them by degrees to 

 the open air, and early in May put them out into the borders, or 

 put them into large pots ; according as you design them to blow. 

 In a fine warm summer they will be finer in the open air than in 

 the green-house or stove ; less drawn up, and bearing flowers 

 larger and far more abundant, and towards the fall they will ripen 

 seed in abundance, which should be carefully gathered every even- 

 ing. The pods should be very cautiously approached for this 

 purpose, as, if ripe, they fly in pieces instantly, on being touched, 

 and scatter the seed in aU directions. See that the pod be a little 

 yellow before you gather it, and then fold your hand round it, 

 and let it fly open within your fingers. But, to return to the 

 plants, these will never want water after they are once well rooted 

 in the open ground ; but a little stirring of the ground round 

 them has a great effect on their growth. Those that you keep in 



