114 
HINTS ON THE FLOWERING OF PLANTS. 
which none can fail to admire, have not been partial, but universal in their 
operation. We may briefly glance at what those influences are. 
Ordinary ideas respecting the wonderful development of blossom this season 
would lead us to attribute the display to last year's scarcity of bloom, but in doing so, 
we need scarcely observe, we commit error. That of which we write is undoubtedly 
chargeable to the account of last year, or rather to its extraordinary weather, and is 
too indisputable to require further mentioning. It might be instructive to inquire 
into and enlarge upon the processes, as they relate to the subject in question, acting 
through a summer like the last, in opposition to those in force during one the very 
reverse in character; but it would involve too serious an amount of theoretical 
detail for our present purpose. The object now in view is to suggest, very briefly, 
an idea or two, founded on recent experience, in connection with the subject 
professedly written upon. 
Those who only give their attention, to a very limited extent, to gardening 
matters, cannot but have observed that a tropical sun of the power and continuance 
of that of part of last year, or one in degree similar, is always succeeded by 
comparatively like effects, to those which the present spring has produced. 
Herein is hidden that secret we will cursorily notice. The weather in that period 
of last year which is usually regarded, and generally is, the growing season, hap- 
pened to be such as induced most plants, whether those which had an unlimited 
supply of nutriment at command, or those less favourably situated, to assimilate such 
food and dispose of it in the desired manner ; and hence this spring's beauty of our 
gardens and orchards, and the increased delight the lanes and fields afford. 
Perhaps it may here occur to our constant readers that we have said as much, and 
conveyed more on this subject formerly, in that part of an article on conservative 
walls which relates to the formation of their borders, and in other places (see pages 
181, and 235, of volume xii). Similar ideas, doubtless, are traceable in each of 
the places to which allusion is made, but those ideas are of a nature which permits 
their repetition without a diminution in value taking place ; and this is our excuse 
for recurring to them. 
The time, too, at which they are reproduced is, it will not be disputed, appro- 
priate. At the date upon which they will meet the public gaze, the time and 
attention of the gardening world will be occupied in storing their flower-gardens and 
grounds with plants which are to produce a display of bloom and beauty for the 
season. 
In conclusion, we would remind all those engaged in the operation of turning 
plants into the open ground, that the common error committed in doing so predomi- 
nates on the side of providing them with too much food rather than on that of 
arranging for too little. For the minor mistake, it is now getting well known there 
are simple and readily-applied correctives ; but for the greater evils remedies are 
scarce, and those few are difficult of application except at the proper period. 
