85 
CULTURE OF PELARGONIUMS. 
{Continued from page 62.) 
Winter treatment. — "Wherever Pelargonia are grown, whether by the professed 
florist or the unassuming amateur, we have always remarked that the season in 
which they have fallen shortest of the condition most consonant with their natural 
health is at the close of the winter months. By the simplest routine, we can pre- 
serve them tolerably free from debility in the summer ; but nothing less than 
unceasing care will effect this while every external circumstance is conspiring to 
their harm. 
Every one must concede that the management of a collection of exotic plants in 
a variable winter, will at once decide the experience or practical ability of any 
aspirant for floricultural fame. And if, from amongst this large class, we were to 
choose any particular tribe, to a successful issue in the culture of which the highest 
merit should be accorded, we could not hesitate to select those whose stems and 
leaves were of the most succulent nature, and which, of all that are located in 
houses, required the lowest temperature. It will be seen, therefore, that we deem 
Pelargonia at least one of the genera more urgently demanding continuous atten- 
tion, to keep them in a condition corresponding to the season. 
"We do not deny that life and an ordinary share of health may be preserved 
inviolate by the prevalent economy. The object of this essay is to show how the 
acme of perfection may be reached ; and every stage beneath this is only one step 
in a series of degeneracies, each of which will leave the plants so much nearer the 
state from which they have been elevated. 
To allow full effect to our suggestions, we must revert for a moment to the 
time before treated of, even though at the expense of a little repetition. Let it be 
established as an irrefragable position, that the most habitual guardianship of 
plants in the winter will merely decrease the bad effects of neglect during autumn, 
if the latter period has been suffered to pass unimproved. Should any specimens 
be permitted to imbibe an undue quantity of moisture in the months of August, 
September, &c., and thus to contract such irregular and improper habits of exten- 
sion, as will continue till arrested by positive cold, they may perhaps struggle 
through a trying winter, but there is every reason to anticipate the contrary. 
The greatest fault we have to expose in the culture of Pelargonia, is the procras- 
tination of the autumnal pruning beyond the most suitable season, thereby detaining 
the plants from forming and ripening their shoots, ere winter arrives to oppose an 
effectual barrier to further progression in either process. It is thoroughly essential 
that this should be done immediately on the fall of the flowers, and that the plants 
be then placed in a warm department of a house or frame. Treated thus, they will 
produce and perfect shoots three inches long by the beginning of September, after 
