JUNE. 



:;7 



require keeping rather dry until rooted, then pot off, and give them a close 

 strong heat for a few days, when the same treatment as for the older plants 

 will suit them ; they will make specimens the following year. 



I grow the most of mine, near the glass, in a very light Muscat vinery ; but 

 some of the best were kept in a vinery where the fruit was cut in July, and the 

 front as well as top lights left open, day and night, until the middle of Sep- 

 tember, and then placed in the light part of a span-roofed stove with the others. 



To obtain small plants for furnishing vases, dinner-table decoration, &c, I 

 strike the tops of shoots, from the end of July until September, and pot in 

 3-inch pots. The July plants arc shifted into 5 and 6-inch pots, and the late 

 ones flower in 3-inch pots, when they make useful plants for turning out of 

 pots to peep up above Lycopod-covered Orange-tree tubs, or to fill vases, with 

 soil between and mossed over, as they will be from 3 to 12 inches high with 

 foliage to the pot. These plants are kept close to the glass in a shallow pit, 

 heated with pipes. 



All the plants have two top-dressings during the autumn, not of fine soil, 

 as sometimes used, but dried hotbed manure and strong loam, chopped together, 

 with the fine sifted, from it with a half-inch sieve, and a little silver sand mixed 

 with the rough ; it is soon filled with roots when put on the surface of pots, 

 and also acts as a mulching. Of course it requires a little extra examination 

 for watering ; for, although the Poinsettia is a very thirsty plant, if the soil 

 gets sodden the feeding-roots perish, and it loses all its leaves. 



I need not mention that they require keeping clean and free from insects, 

 as it is well known no plant can be grown satisfactorily without that attention : 

 but as it is also well known that the Poinsettia is particularly liable to be 

 infested with bug and scale, we must spare no pains to keep those pests at a 

 distance. Here, we have no bug; but after cutting the plants down, I have the 

 stumps painted with soft soap, tobacco water, sulphur, &c. — the same mixture, 

 in fact, that we use for the Vines, and find it does the plants no harm, and sets 

 vermin at defiance. 



Teddesley Gardens, Stafford. James Taplin. 



BLOOMING- ISABELLA GRAY ROSE. 



In page 7 of the Fxoeist and Pomologist, the Rev. W. F. Radclyffe 

 describes the difficulty experienced by many, as well as by himself, of getting 

 Isabella Gray and Cloth of Gold Roses to bloom. Will you kindly permit me, 

 through you, to inform him of the probable cause, but at any rate of a certain 

 remedy ? 



As to the first, both these Roses are early bloomers and require an early 

 stock for working on: this is met by my remedy, which is the second and 

 most important part of this communication. 



Having two old trees of the common old-fashioned White (centre lightly 

 blush) garden Rose covering a large space on a south wall, I tried buds of 

 Cloth of Gold, Saffrano, and Isabella Gray on young wood, and the former has 

 bloomed freely and splendidly for five years past ; an/i the two latter kinds for 

 the last two years equally well. I tried Banksian and other stocks ; and although 

 Saffrano did well almost anywhere, I never succeeded in getting one bloom of 

 the other varieties until I worked them on the White Rose, which is a very early 

 bloomer. The Cloth of Gold is very capricious, both as to soil, climate, aspect, 

 and treatment, so I will just add that soil is rather a poor one — worn-out 

 gravelly loam ; climate too^ moist for pleasure, but otherwise genial ; the aspect 

 due south ; treatment, liquid manure two or three times a-year, and no pruning 



