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THE FOUNTAIN GARDEN, WORTH PARK. 



CULTURE OF CHRYSANTHEMUMS FOR EXHIBITION. 

 By Edwin Beckett. 



THE FIRST STEPS. — To deal with the question of culture in a thoroughly- 

 practical manner it is of the highest importance to begin quite at the 

 beginning. This period should be somewhere about the declining days of 

 November and the earlier part of December. At this time the plants that 

 have produced their flower display are ready to be cut down. Preparing the old 

 stools in this way develops fresh new growths from which the stock of cuttings for 

 next season's plants are to be propagated. It is curious to notice that the plants of 

 different varieties vary considerably in their constitution, and while one sort may 

 develop quite a large number of new and desirable shoots, others often fail entirely, at least 

 for some time, to produce anything except poor, weakly, and sickly growths, useless to 

 perpetuate the variety, however handsome the blooms may have been the previous season. 

 Others, too, are very shy in the production of cuttings, and, because many of these sorts 

 are indispensable for exhibition, means have to be taken to encourage growths to develop. 

 Plants which have been too liberally supplied with plant foods in the form of liquid manure, etc., 

 develop a tendency to get into a bad and unhealthy condition, which renders them incapable 

 of producing healthy stock for propagating. For this reason, where time can be spared and 

 accommodation provided shake out the plants from their flowering pots, reduce the ball of 

 earth, and either repot into some light gritty compost, using pots about 6in. in diameter, or plunge 

 them without pots into a bed of similar compost on the bench of a cool greenhouse or 

 heated pit-frame. In following out this plan, considerable space is gained in the amount 

 of room occupied by the plants, and in a short time, providing the atmosphere is made suitable, 

 first by a copious supply of water overhead and at the roots, and then keeping the 

 structure somewhat close at first, healthy shoots are soon emitted, these, too, of 



