62 
ON THE CULTURE OP THE CHINESE AND INDIAN AZALEA. 
equally together, taking care not to make them too fine, and pot the plants. After 
the plants are all shifted, remove them to a pit or vinery, where a moist temperature 
of from 60° to 75° is kept, and water and syringe them freely. By the end of 
August these pots will he stocked with roots, and therefore they must be shifted 
again, giving the strongest plants eight, and the weaker ones twelve-sized pots. 
After this return them to the forcing-house ; and as flower is not the object of the 
first season's growth, at least where specimens are required, persevere in your 
former method of treatment, and keep the plants growing until the middle of 
November. During the season of growth due attention must be paid to the stopping 
of luxuriant branches, so as to make them produce abundance of side shoots, and 
the branches must be so disposed as to form a uniform and compact plant. 
We have got to the end of the first season; and as the enthusiastic cultivator, like 
the rest of mankind, now only consents to travel at railway speed, we will, having 
given the plants two months' rest, begin to start them again in January. At this 
time they should be introduced into an early vinery, just set to work on a house in 
which a corresponding and gradual increase of temperature is to be observed ; and 
if any of the shoots have set flower buds, rub them all off, leaving one or two to 
prove the kind. During this season you must also persevere in the same method 
of treatment, stopping the straggling shoots when necessary, and encouraging diffuse 
and compact growth as much as possible. Do not however stop any of the shoots 
after the middle of August, but from that time endeavour to bring the plants into 
moderate growth so as to ripen the wood, and set the bloom. Those plants which 
are intended for early blooming, must be kept in heat until the flower-buds are of 
considerable size — until in fact on breaking the bud the faint colour of the flower can 
be discovered. By very gentle forcing these will bloom in the depth of winter ; 
but when intended for late blooming the plants must be removed from the forcing- 
house so soon as the flower-buds are perceived, kept in a cool dry pit, merely 
excluding the frost throughout the winter and spring, and they will bloom in June 
and July. 
Thus we have traced the cutting or graft from its infancy into a large blooming 
specimen plant, which with ordinary treatment will continue to delight you with its 
bloom for a number of years. The treatment in future will be simply to give them 
a season of growth in heat after they have done blooming, and until their bloom for 
the following season is set, potting them wherever it is considered necessary, and 
supplying them liberally during the growing season with liquid manure. 
The only insects which Azaleas are subject to are thrips and green-fly, both of 
which may be destroyed by frequent but slight fumigations of tobacco. They also 
suffer occasionally from attacks of mildew, which is best removed or checked by a 
liberal dusting of sulphur directly it is perceived. 
Subjoined is a list of thirty of the best and most distinct Azaleas which have 
come under our notice, and which have the further advantage of not being very 
expensive. 
