119 
OPERATIONS FOR JUNE. 
If each month of the year were to receive a name according to the predomi- 
nant state of vegetation at that period, all would agree in designating June the 
month of flowers. And as the condition of plants at any season will always 
furnish data for their treatment, it may be useful to inquire how specimens in 
a flowering state should be managed, so as to perpetuate their display, and promote 
the prime purposes of the cultivator. 
There are numbers of species that blossom simultaneously, but at very different 
stages of their growth. Thus, many exotic shrubs produce distinct blossom-buds 
from the old stem, which are expanded ere the leaves are thoroughly developed ; 
while others bear their flowers on the summits of the newly-formed shoots. In the 
former case, the inflorescence is the precursor of further developments ; in the 
latter, it indicates a cessation of actual growth. Notwithstanding this disparity, 
the treatment of both classes is exceedingly similar, as the one requires solar influ- 
ence to elicit its activity, and the like agency is as needful to perfect the accretions 
of the other. 
Of the details, much, after all, has to be determined by a consideration of the 
culturis^s objects. If he wish to ripen the seed of a plant, he cannot keep its 
flowers too greatly exposed. Should he, again, be desirous of retaining the flowers as 
long as possible, without any regard either to the specimen producing them or to seed, 
it must be placed in a cold shaded position, and all the decayed blossoms removed 
as they wither. As Orchidacese usually bloom at a period when much light is 
unnecessary for them, they can be transferred to a drawing-room without suf- 
fering the slightest detriment. All other choice flowers that are wished to remain 
long in perfection should be shaded with thin canvass, which has a most conserva- 
tive effect on the blossoms themselves, and is by no means hurtful to the plants. 
For the flower-garden, where the fashionable system of filling the beds with 
annual and other plants prepared in a secluded situation is pursued, we would 
recommend that these be reared in pots. In some collections, it is customary 
to sow dwarf annuals in a retired part of the kitchen-garden, and after thinning 
them while very young, to leave the remainder till the flowers begin to appear. 
They are then taken up, with as much earth as will adhere to their roots, and 
planted in clumps of the flower department. So great is the injury sustained by 
this untimeous shift, that the plants never recover from it, and thereafter constantly 
present a sickly aspect, without blooming either finely or profusely. The grand 
purport of the method is by this means frustrated. If, instead of this, the speci- 
mens were planted by twos or threes, in small pots, and these plunged to their rim 
