GERANIUM. 



119 



gera'nium. 



quently repotted into larger and larger 

 pots, during March, April, and May ; 

 and, should the weather he rather 

 cold, or the plants backward, a little 

 fire put into the greenhouse at night 

 will have a good effect in promoting 

 luxuriant growth and the formation 

 of blossoms. Immediately after the 

 plants have flowered, they should be 

 cut down nearly to the ground, or they 

 will always present an etiolated un- 

 healthy appearance. By thus cutting 

 them down, abundance of fine young 

 shoots will be produced by the autumn^ 

 which should be thinned out, and 

 those taken out used as cuttings. In 

 this manner, good bushy plants are 

 insured, and plenty of young plants 

 provided for the next year. Many 

 hundreds of beautiful varieties of 

 Geraniums have been raised from 

 seed, the more remarkable are cross- 

 breeds ; that is, those raised from a 

 plant the stigma of which has been 

 fecundated by pollen from the anthers 

 of another variety of the same species. 

 In this respect, cross-breeds differ from 

 hybrids, which are raised from seed 

 fecundated from a plant of a different 

 genus, or, at any rate, a very different 

 species. The use of cross-breeding is 

 thus rather to improve plants, by 

 crossing them with others having a 

 better habit of growth, or more bril- 

 liant coloured flowers, than to raise 

 new and striking varieties ; and, for 

 this purpose, the plants chosen for 

 the parents should be such as would 

 be greatly improved by admixture 

 with another. For example, a fine 

 bright coloured flower, on a plant of 

 a loose and bad habit of growth, might 

 be crossed by a plant of a dwarf habit, 

 the flowers of which were not beauti- 

 ful, and so on. The plant that is 

 intended to bear the seed should be 

 carefully watched, and, just before the 

 pollen bursts, the stamens should be 

 cut off. The operator must then 

 wait till the Btigma becomes covered 



with moisture exuding from it ; and 

 then, but not before, the pollen from 

 the other plant must be applied with 

 the point of a penknife, or the hairs 

 of a camel's hair pencil. Should the 

 cells of the anthers of the one plant 

 burst before the stigma of the other 

 becomes moist, the pollen may be 

 collected, and kept in paper, till the 

 stigma is ready to receive it. In some 

 cases, pollen has been kept good in 

 this manner for two years ; but the 

 moisture of the stigma should be taken 

 advantage of as soon as it appears, as 

 it soon dries up, and cannot be re- 

 stored artificially. The best time for 

 performing the operation seems to he 

 about the middle of a bright sunny 

 day ; and, as soon as it is done, a bit of 

 string, or a strand of bast-mat, should 

 be tied round the stem of the flower, 

 that the seed-pod may be known. As 

 soon as the seeds are ripe, they should 

 be sown immediately in shallow pans 

 of light sandy soil, and set on a green- 

 house shelf, where they may be suf- 

 fered to remain during the winter. 

 Many of the young plants will come 

 up by spring, when they should be 

 immediately potted off into single 

 pots, and treated as before recom- 

 mended for cuttings. 



The following mode of grafting 

 Geraniums is abridged from the 

 " Floricultural Magazine" for May 

 1840. The stocks should be of the 

 strongest and healthiest kinds, about 

 two or three years old, and rendered 

 bushy by frequent transplanting, and 

 pinching off the leading shoots. The 

 year before they are wanted as stocks, 

 they should be cut down in August 

 to within three eyes (or buds) of the 

 base of each shoot. In the following 

 May the stocks should be transplanted 

 into fresh pots, a size larger than their 

 old ones ; and, early in June, they 

 should be " cut down to a clear grown 

 part of the shoot, about two inches 

 from the last year's wood." The 



