248 
HIE PANSY. 
strengthen a little under glass before finally 
potting or planting out. When you are sowing 
seed you must watch for the particular pods 
you marked and wanted, and throw the others 
together as common. Dig beds intended for 
Pansies, and dress with a little rotten cow- 
dung or leaf mould, as much as would lay two 
inches thick all over the bed, and this should 
be mixed with about six inches of the soil, 
and well incorporated. It may then lay rough 
dug or ridged all the winter, or until wanted. 
The bed should be dug deep for turning over, 
and the dung forked in, so as to mix well with 
the top six or eight inches, and no more. 
Obtain new plants this month, as far as prac- 
ticable, as you have a chance of getting them 
strong by the spring, but if you get them 
much later they may as well be left till the 
spring altogether. 
November. — In this month of change and 
garden improvement, many of the beds in 
which Pansies have grown are turned to 
other account, and therefore a number are 
removed from the ground : if these are good 
for any thing save them ; soak the bed well 
before you take them up, and remove them 
with all the fibres of the roots whole ; by 
washing them out and pulling them to pieces, 
you will find many young plants among the 
pieces, that is to say, many of the shoots that 
can be torn off with roots already struck ; 
other pieces may be planted in pots to strike, 
but generally there will be enough plants 
without striking any more to answer all pur- 
poses ; nevertheless, when a stock is required 
let all be appropriated, and if you can give 
slight bottom heat the better. This month 
you should make all the alterations and addi- 
tions you intend ; it is favourable for making 
new beds and improving old ones. If you 
could not get your new flowers in, last month, 
try this; but immediately plant them in pots, 
and get them into frames, for any thing choice 
too often reaches us so weakly and unworthy 
of being called a plant, that a good healthy 
cutting would, in our mind, be far more valu- 
able. They frequently have so very little 
fibre as to be much more difficult to re- 
cover, than it would be to strike them over 
again ; and, when a plant has created suspicion, 
we have examined the base of it, and, perhaps, 
found a hard corny substance instead of a 
root, or, may be, a poor weak fibre or two on 
one side, and a swelled hard base. In such 
cases we have frequently cut off such base to 
the next joint, and struck it again ; but in 
most cases by potting into fresh stuff, and 
giving a slight bottom heat for a week or 
two they have wonderfully advanced, and by 
cooling gradually they took their places among 
the rest in the cold frame without any danger 
or damage. 
December.— The wind-up of the year 
forms no division of seasons, though in calen- 
deric matters we must begin and end some- 
where. The management during this month 
assimilates nearest to that for January, for 
protection to all plants that suffer from cold is 
as likely to be required in December as in the 
month following. Indeed, in this fickle 
climate, there is no calculating on even a 
likely period between December and May to 
be free from frost or to have frost. The whole 
time between September — which generally 
cuts off the Dahlias and other under flowers — 
and May — when we often see the Tulips 
turned black with it — we are never perfectly 
safe a day ; and though we have known 
seasons in which there has scarcely been a 
frost, we have had other seasons in which 
there has been hard freezing every night 
and many days for months together. In 
December a frost will frequently come very 
severe, and being in the midst of a free 
autumnal growth, it is very trying to plants. 
We therefore now commence with the month, 
preparations for a steady observance of the 
necessary protection at night, and its con- 
tinuance in day-time during hard frosts. 
The frames in which all the potted plants are, 
require particular attention, because the frost 
once allowed to get through the sides of the 
pot, affects the most tender fibres, which are 
precisely those from which the plant is de- 
riving the principal nourishment. Many 
persons plunge their potted plants in ashes or 
tan to protect the sides, and some plunge them 
in the earth itself; we dislike this chiefly on 
account of its getting damp and inducing 
mildew, and tan or ashes are no better, for 
they retain the moisture that goes through the 
pots when they are watered. The bottom of a 
frame, or rather that on which the frame stands, 
should be so hard as not to admit the water 
into it, and sufficiently sloping to let it run 
off; but they require the most careful pro- 
tection against frosts, and the best is trans- 
parent waterproof calico or thin canvas. This, 
while it confines the natural warmth of the 
earth within a well-made frame, does not ex- 
clude the light, and by throwing off the wet, 
instead of absorbing it as mats or unprepared 
cloth does, would do less harm in a week's 
close confinement during bad weather, than 
ordinary mats or cloths would in twenty-four 
hours. It should be observed, that for ordi- 
nary night frosts the covering of the top is 
sufficient, but if there come a succession of 
hard frosts, the covering should reach the 
ground to confine the natural warmth; and all 
frames should be close and well made, and 
have the bottom banked up a little to prevent 
draught under the wood-work : a little gravel 
or earth laid sloping round the outside is the 
