100 ANTIRRHINUM MAJUS FLORE PLENO. 
Epsom, and our figure was taken from a plant which bloomed in the grounds of 
those gentlemen in July, 1842. It is almost unnecessary to add that the small size 
of the plate would not permit us to depict a cluster of the usual magnitude, and 
we have therefore been obliged to content ourselves with one much below the 
ordinary standard. 
Perhaps, as a means of promoting the production of superior varieties, it may 
be useful to hint at the extent of the genus, and the number of species of a very 
distinct nature which might be employed to fertilise the seeds of A. majus, with 
great probability of a successful result. 
If it be objected to allow these plants a place among the rarer beauties 
of the flower-garden, we would yet urge their pleasing and showy properties as 
worth the cultivator's attention to enliven the rockery, or some of the wilder parts 
of the pleasure ground. And indeed it is in rocky, barren ground, in dry gravelly 
situations, among stones and rubbish, where few other plants will acquire any 
excellency, that these plants are seen in the greatest perfection ; and it is only in 
such situations that they endure without injury the severity of winter. When 
grown in wet and damp places, or in too rich ground, they are exceedingly liable 
to rot and die away in the winter months. 
The best plants are always obtained from seeds, which may be sown early in 
spring, and transplanted before they become too crowded. They will generally 
flower in the same year. But to perpetuate varieties like the present, recourse 
must be had to cuttings, which root freely under a hand-glass, or even without any 
other protection than a mat to shade them from the sun. As soon as the plants 
have ceased blooming let the flower-stalks be removed, and in the spring when 
young shoots begin to form, the old branches must be cut away within an inch or 
two of their origin. By such treatment the plants will always be preserved neat, 
and the branches will be less liable to break, than when allowed to grow year by 
year without pruning. The flowers will also be finer and more abundant. 
