PROPAGATION OP PLANTS BY SEEDS. 



39 



as recommended for those grown in pots. Care must be 

 taken that they do not freeze, else the glasses will be 

 broken, and the Hyacinths more or less injured. Single 

 Hyacinths are better than double ones for glasses. The 

 water should be changed every six or eight days. 



CHAPTEE XII. 



PROPAGATION OF PLANTS BY SEEDS. 



Nature provides abundantly for the reproduction of 

 plants, and the difficulty of multiplying by one method 

 is compensated by the ease with which it may be done 

 in another. Whenever we find a plant takes root with 

 difficulty from " slips 99 or cuttings, in nine cases out of 

 ten we find that it seeds freely, and gives us a ready 

 means of increase. Thus we find the much admired 

 Centaureas, one kind of the " Dusty Millers," the white 

 leaved plants now so much used in massing and for 

 baskets, are exceedingly difficult and slow to root from 

 cuttings, but are readily raised from seeds. Our fine 

 strains of blotched Petunias are also troublesome as cut- 

 tings, but make plants quickly from seeds. The Cycla- 

 men with its turnip-like stem or bulb, could only be 

 propagated by cutting in pieces, disfiguring its shape, and 

 requiring years to form a circular bulb again, but here we 

 have seed coming to our help which germinates freely, 

 and makes a flowering plant in one year. The Apple 

 Geranium never affords proper cuttings from which to 

 make a plant, but it seeds freely, from which splendid 

 plants can be produced in a few months. So the Pri- 

 mulas and Cinerarias, both slow and uncertain from cut- 

 tings, seed freely. Echeveria metallica, one of the beau- 



