162 
PROPAGATION OF FLOWER-GARDEN PLANTS. 
endure cold and other hostile influences, and are also certain to be more serviceabb 
eventually. 
All that is required to induce the whole of the hardy plants necessary to on 
flower-gardens — cuttings of them being chosen as before directed — to strike, is, t( 
favour them with a cool, close, and moist atmosphere, such as a hand-glass under ; 
North wall, or a common frame on an old spent dung-bed, when well shaded, wouk 
furnish, and even this is required hut a very short period. The same may he sale 
of such things as Pelargoniums, Verbenas, &c. : the latter we have propagated in j 
cold frame, stuck in a cuttiug-pot in the ordinary way, and occasionally shaded by i 
garden mat; and the former by thousands annually, when stuck all over the surface o 
an old cucumber or melon bed, without the least shelter from the blazing sun : undeli 
these circumstances, when well supplied with water, it is astonishing in how short i 
time, and what useful plants, can be raised. Of half-hardy plants there are many 
of which the two mentioned are typical, that can be raised in an exactly simila 
manner ; but in this, as in every case, it is well to avoid a resort to extremes, b; 
which we mean that while we would always raise Pelargoniums in the manner thos< 
just instanced were raised, and while many things, Verbenas, &c., could be raiser 
similarly, we would yet give the latter a little warmth, because they would be s< 
much benefited by it. To Heliotropes, Salvias, Senecios, &c., the same condition if 
quite requisite ; so also is it to such things similar in point of hardiness, but morj 
delicate in other respects, to Nierembergias, Anagallises, Lobelias, &c. 
The degree of warmth required, is that only sufficiently strong and moist to 
support the cuttings till they begin to root. Where cuttings can be permanent!; 
potted off as soon as they are sufficiently rooted, they may be properly struck in a 
wholesale a way as possible. But where, from various causes, such a plan canno 
be carried out, they may be struck in the pots, pans, or boxes they are intended t| 
be preserved in, arranging the media for their roots accordingly, and putting h 
abundance of cuttings, to permit them to be well thinned out as their increase iij 
size require it ; or strike them in the most convenient way, and afterwards pricl 
them into the pots, &c., above mentioned. Generally, though, from necessity alone! 
the last method of keeping flower-garden plants is adopted. We have said nothini 
of the kind of soil or composition of material for placing the cuttings in, taking i 
for granted that it is sufficiently well known that the medium for the roots o 
cuttings as well as plants under such circumstances, cannot be of too sterile a nature 
so that it is sufficiently good to effect the purpose desired to be attained. 
We cannot too much endeavour to fix attention upon this subject, for th< 
practice of rearing flower-garden plants, either from cuttings or seeds in any manner 
because they are so easily raised, and under the impression that it is of no conse 
quence, is altogether indefensible. The custom of doing so causes, at least, a ver 
unnecessary outlay of trouble and labour, to say nothing of the chances of loss fron 
cuttings not striking, and the difficulty of preserving them as plants when they haw 
been improperly struck. 
