ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. 



XL — Notes respecting a few Ornamental Winter and Spring 

 Flowering Plants. By George Fleming, C.M.H.S., Gar- 

 dener to the Duke of Sutherland, F.H.S., at Trentham. 



(Communicated March 2, 1850.) 



As the value of winter-flowering plants cannot at any time be 

 better appreciated than when the possession of them gives the 

 greatest enjoyment, or the want of them is felt most acutely, I 

 deem it a fitting occasion to make sundry recommendations as to 

 what to prepare for a future season ; and, in doing this, I hope to 

 combine past experience with more recent ideas which have 

 been suggested by reading, observation, or reflection, all being 

 helped along together by necessity. 



One common mode of proceeding is to make extensive use of 

 hardy shrubs too early in the forciug season. The objections to 

 this are, that the display produced by exciting plants at a season 

 so very unnatural to them, is strikingly inferior to what they 

 would create a few weeks later ; and another objection is, that 

 the plants, after being forced, must either be thrown away or 

 else protected under glass until the season is warm enough for 

 them to grow out of doors, which is a serious inconvenience; 

 but by confining the use of such plants to a later period, their 

 beauty and fragrance are greater, and after that is past, the 

 temperate weather of spring, the period at which they would 

 naturally begin growth, is so near at hand, that little difficulty 

 is experienced in protecting them. We often hear of such 

 plants as the Persian Lilac, Hyacinth, Moss Roses, Pinks, &c, 

 being forced into flower early in January. Now, we know that 

 when these plants have been previously well prepared for it 

 they can be had as early as January ; but they can seldom be 

 kept under glass, and receive that attention which such early 

 forcing renders necessary, and in nine cases out of ten they re- 

 ceive so much injury that it takes years to recover them. It is 

 not reasonable to go to the expense of subjecting plants to too 

 early forcing while so beautiful a display can be made by sub- 

 jects which come into flower naturally during the winter months. 

 For very useful plants during December and January I beg to 

 refer the reader to List 1. The greater beauty of forced 

 flowers, when only excited a few weeks before their natural 

 time of flowering, is an inducement to make a better arrange- 



