336 
THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
plants before tbeir beauty is all fled will prevent this, for if the 
name is gone you will be able to keep a description of the flower. 
The proper mode of preserving the tubers during the winter does 
not seem to be generally understood, since amateurs are continually 
complaining that their stock is partly or wholly lost at the time for 
propagating. 
Where there is a greenhouse, the roots are generally safe under 
the stage, placed in a heap, and covered with a mat or some straw. 
They have also been kept in a sound state in the stable, or any out- 
building secured from frost. Others have found that when left in the 
ground, and properly covered up, Dahlias are generally in a healthy 
state in the spring. Last year I potted mine, like potatoes, and 
found them in good order, except that some slugs had got in and 
feasted gloriously on the tubers, crowns and all. This catastrophe 
might have been prevented by filling up the interstices with dry 
ashes. I have no doubt that if the stems were cut off to within 
three inches of the ground, and some ashes placed round them in a 
conical form, and then some litter spread on the surface, the roots 
would be found in fine condition in the spring. But this is an ob- 
jectionable practice in many respects. It leaves the garden in an 
untidy condition, and takes up room which might be properly occu- 
pied with spring bulbs. It is doubtless the case that the roots of 
Dahlias are less dependent on the place they occupy in the winter 
than on certain conditions in which they are stored away. I believe 
they are more frequently injured by early frosts than is imagined, 
for the effects of such injury do not manifest themselves imme- 
diately ; all appears sound at first, but the results become evident 
in a general rottenness before the winter is past. If the tubers are 
quite sound when taken from the soil, and have not been allowed to 
become glutted with heavy and continued rains, it will require but 
little care to protect them. The mould should not be shaken off; 
all external moisture should be dried off by exposure to the sun and 
wind, and the tubers in this state may be piled together with the 
crowns upward. The collection should be looked over once or twice 
during the winter, lest slugs or other vermin should be slyly com- 
mitting ravages. 
IRIDS, IXIAS, SPARAXIS, AXD TRITOXIAS. 
QNG half-hardy and greenhouse Irids, Ixias, Sparaxis, 
Tritonia, etc., are perhaps the most beautiful, and are 
so easily managed, that persons who have once seen a 
well-grown collection are surprised that they are not 
more extensivelv cultivated — thriving, as they do, in 
ordinary mixtures of soil, adapted for the flower garden borders, 
when dry, and merely protected through winter with a surfacing of 
dry material, only requiring to be preserved from severe frosts until 
spring ; when treated in a cold pit or frame, or placed on the coolest 
part of the greenhouse platform, dispensing with all attention for 
