46 



and those who buy dry roots are likely to be more 

 anxious than he who possesses a whole stock, because 

 they know all their neighbours are at work at the 

 same thing, and they endeavour to beat them in 

 number : every extra plant, if only as big as a straw, 

 is so much in their pockets ; and they watch every 

 bud, every shoot, every leaf, ready to seize upon the 

 most remote chance of an additional half-guinea. 

 Thus the cultivators of the dahlia have hardly fair 

 play, because they too often pay half-a-guinea for the 

 privilege of farming a dry root for the next season, 

 instead of being enabled to exhibit from a plant the 

 year they buy it. Thus it is that many a flower 

 which has really fair claims is often condemned and 

 discarded the first season. (Gard. and Flor. iii. 58.) 



Very often, however, amateurs complain without a 

 just cause. Their object in getting plants so early, 

 often, is to take the tops off themselves, and thus to 

 endeavour to grow two instead of one specimen of 

 some favourite, and, consequently, with bad manage- 

 ment, neither blooms in time, and the nurseryman is 

 blamed for that with which he had nothing to do. 



Forced Shoots, — This, as we have just observed, is 

 the most usual mode of propagation. The tubers, 

 when full grown, would require an enormous pot, 

 unless they were reduced by cutting. Some of the 

 lobes, therefore, may be cut away altogether, others 

 may be shortened, and particularly those which grow 



