64 
ON DISBUDDING FLOWERING PLANTS. 
Ixoras furnisli another very favourable exemplification of the point we are 
discussing. Those who cultivate them most successfully take care to prune them 
vigorously, that they may never get larger than mere bushes, and may send out 
lateral shoots enough to make the production of flowers ample. As a consequence 
of this pruning, they yearly generate an augmented supply of side shoots, which 
soon get so numerous that they hinder the leading ones from flowering finely. 
These, then, we would have examined when the buds were on the point of 
expanding, and all but those which are intended to flower, with two or three to 
give an added verdure and compactness to the plant, should be taken off entirely. 
More magnificent bunches of bloom would thus unquestionably be secured. 
Lisianthus Russellianiis is another plant which, in certain states, requires to be 
disbudded. After having bloomed once, or been accidentally broken down, if 
deterred from seeding, it will send out a quantity of young laterals, which, unless 
thinned immediately on their appearance, will not more than half or a third of 
them bloom, and the rest will be very seriously impoverished. But should some 
of the buds, which are least promising, or are in positions where they can well be 
spared, be removed at first, the plant will grow and flower with unwonted energy 
and richness. 
After all, the cases we have selected are merely illustrative of a system which 
may comprise a vast multitude of plants of all classes, whatever may be the mode 
in which their inflorescence is arranged. This system is, for the most part, 
necessary only where some kind of pruning is pursued ; and it is for that pruning 
that we seek to substitute it wherever practicable, because it saves some little time, 
and a very large amount of the plant's strength and beauty. Pelargoniums, many 
kinds of climbers, and all plants which, through culture, grow too dense, or bear 
too many branches to flower perfectly, may be most appropriately subjected to it. 
Indeed, we know of no exotic that is the object of artificial treatment to promote 
bushiness, which may not, at some period or other, need such assistance. 
Beyond its usefulness, however, in reference to those specimens which want 
their side branches thinning lest they get too weak or crowded, we are anxious 
specially to exhibit its advantages in regard to such as it is wished to make more 
bushy. Practised on the terminal buds of young plants, it would have all the 
effect of stopping their shoots, while, at the same time, it spared them the needless 
expansion of those shoots. There are many plants grown in greenhouses and 
stoves, which, like those in the open air, finish their summer s enlargement by 
forming a bud at the end of their stems or branches. And those which do not 
grow thus, fold up their leaves into a sort of half-expanded bud. In either instance, 
the bud or point could be plucked out carefully directly the sap was set in motion 
in the spring ; or the heart of the young shoot could be abstracted as soon as the 
bud began to develop. This, though a novel, would certainly be a valuable 
application of the principle ; since, by its means, the time and energy wasted on 
the elongation of the shoot before it would generally be stopped, might in this way 
