CULTURE OF THE CAMELLIA. 
35 
Indeed their beauty need not be confined to the winter months ; for they may be 
made to produce flowers in succession through the whole year, although such as 
are produced from November to April are usually the finest. A plant of the double 
white flowered at Chatsworth in 1831 for six months successively: the temperature 
of the house in which it stood during that time was kept at about 55 to 60 degrees 
Fahr. by day, and from 50 to 55 by night. 
Double Camellias are propagated by grafting, inarching, and budding upon the 
single stocks: this is much preferable to striking them from cuttings ; for although 
they will grow, yet, like many other plants, they do not flourish so well on their 
own as on another stock. 
The single red Camellias usually make the best stocks. These are easily raised 
by cuttings, layers, and sometimes by seeds. 
16. Cuttings may be put in at any time of the year, except when the plants are 
making young wood. But they strike the quickest if taken off just after the young 
shoots have ripened. 
17. Cut off the young ripened wood at about three or four joints, trim off the 
lower leaf or leaves ; with a sharp pen-knife make nearly a horizontal cut through 
the wood close below a joint; plant them in large pans or feeders, filled with sand, 
and if covered with a glass, they will strike root much sooner. 
17. When the cuttings are planted, place them in a vinery or other convenience 
for a month or so ; and afterwards set them in a hot-bed, where they will have a little 
bottom heat. 
18. As soon as they have struck roots pot them in small pots, and set them in a 
close frame until their roots have again begun to grow ; then decrease their tem- 
perature, until they are able to bear the same treatment as old plants. 
19. Good stocks may be speedily obtained, by planting stools in a pit devoted to 
that purpose, and laying them in autumn ; the following autumn most of the layers 
will be rooted, when they may be taken off, and potted, and used as stocks the fol- 
lowing spring. 
20. A few seeds are sometimes obtained from the single red, which should be 
sown in a mixture of leaf-mould and peat as soon as ripe. The pans in which the 
seed is sown should be filled half full of broken potshards, and the remainder of the 
pots filled with a mixture of sand, peat, and leaf-mould. Seeds require two years to 
come up, but they make by far the best stocks. It is advisable to allow these to 
flower before they are made use of as stocks, as there may be amongst them some 
new and valuable variety ; they will flower about the fifth year, if properly treated, 
and if nothing new is produced, they still are excellent stocks. To obtain new 
varieties, it may not be amiss to cross-impregnate the blossoms, by cutting off 
the stamens before the anthers burst, and when the stigma is in a perfect state, 
dusting it with the pollen of another kind. 
21. Grafting. In independent grafting, the mode called side-grafting should 
be used, and the operation of tongueing left out altogether, or if any, it must be 
very small ; great care is requisite not to cut either stock or scion too deep. It is 
indispensable that the wood be quite ripe, and then it may be performed either in 
the autumn or spring before the plants begin to grow. Bind with smooth bass 
