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period. If the fleshy roots are allowed to remain un- 

 touched during the first winter, the store of food in 

 them is undiminished ; and the second year the seed- 

 ling will flower with all the attributes that may be 

 peculiar to it, there being a constant supply of organ- 

 izable matter from the roots equal to the demand that 

 may be made upon it. But if the root is allowed to 

 go on enlarging and filling with such matter for a 

 third year, the quantity then stored up becomes so 

 great that over-luxuriance is induced, and leaves are 

 produced in more abundance than flowers ; and thus 

 the beauty of the individual is impaired. If, on the 

 other hand, a root well prepared for flowering in the 

 most perfect manner is forced continually to produce 

 shoots which are abstracted for cuttings, it by degrees 

 becomes exhausted of the organizable matter stored 

 up in it, and at last the cuttings contain so little mat- 

 ter of that kind, that they are in the same state as 

 seedling plants — namely, possessed of the power of 

 growth, but destitute of any supply of properly pre- 

 pared matter out of which perfect flowers can be 

 formed. The consequence of this is, that plants ob- 

 tained from early cuttings flower well ; from the next 

 supply, worse ; from a third crop, worse still ; and so 

 on. Again, if a dahlia plant struck from a cutting ill- 

 prepared, or even well-prepared, to flower, is itself 

 compelled to furnish other cuttings, it will become 

 exhausted by the cuttings it has yielded, because it 



