THE FLORAL AVORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
89 
is sown, and for that reason give the soil a thorough watering 
previously. Place the seed-pots on the hotbed, or in a hot-house, and 
lay a piece of glass, or a little moss which has been scalded, over the 
pot, but the glass is preferable. Keep the soil moist without being 
in a state of saturation. 
When the young p'ants are fairly above the surface, tilt the glass 
a little on one side, and in a week or so afterwards remove the glass 
altogether, care being taken to prevent the exposure of the young 
plants to the sunshine or currents of air immediately afterwards. 
It is important to transplant them into other pots, or to pot them 
olf singly as early as possible, but it must not be done before they 
have acquired sufEcient strength for them to be handled without 
risk of injury, and that will be when they have two or three leaves 
each the size of a fourpenny piece. The pots will require a few 
pieces of crock in the bottom, and to be tilled with a light, open 
compost, as advised for the Achimenes. Fill the soil in rather 
lightly, make a hole with the finger where the plant is to be inserted, 
lift the latter out with a small fiat piece of wood, and drop it into 
the hole, and press the soil about the roots and sprinkle them over- 
head. Afterwards they can be placed with the general stock. A 
few may flower in the autumn, but whether they do so or not is of 
but little consequence, for a stock of corms capable of making a 
grand display the year following will have been secured. 
In propagating them by cuttings, take the full-grown leaves which 
have become firm with about half an inch of the leaf-stalk and. 
insert them rather close round the sides of five or six-inch pots, and 
put the pots in the same structure as advised for the seed-pots. 
The leaves that will not strike will soon decay, whilst the others will 
remain quite fresh. Those which remain fresh will quickly become 
furnished with roots, and in the course of a comparatively short 
period corms will be formed ; sometimes the latter will push up 
young leaves, whilst at others they will remain quite dormant. 
Those which start into growth early will require potting off sepa- 
rately, and the others should remain in the cutting-pot until the 
following spring, when they can be potted off separately, and other- 
wise managed as advised for those raised from seed. The object in 
putting them in separate pots is to afford them greater facilities for 
acquiring strength, and consequently if they do not produce young 
growth until after the end of July or middle of August, it will be 
quite as well for them to remain undisturbed. 
Gloxinias are always grown singly, and for the first year five- 
inch pots will be quite large enough, but in subsequent years either 
six or eight-inch pots may be employed. It is not desirable to use 
very large pots, for as the whole of the compost will be quite fresh 
when they are started in the spring, they will have an ample supply of 
nourishment. A moderate degree of atmospheric humidity is highly 
conducive to a vigorous growth, but as the flowers, owing to their 
waxy texture, are so soon injured by moisture, syringing overhead 
must be discontinued, or the plants must be removed to a drier 
atmosphere. The conservatory is the proper place for them when 
in bloom. 
March. 
