CULTIVATION OP THE TItOIVF,OLUM. 
61 
run up, and, when it has grown six or eight 
feet along it, to lay the thread with the plant 
on it across or along the parts you want to 
fill, because it is easy to guide it without 
breaking ; but after the bottom is well filled, 
all the shoots may be merely guided upon the 
trellis or the branch of the shrub, whichever 
it may be, minding at the time that they are 
guided to the parts which it would be least 
likely to fill of itself. In the case of small 
bulbs, such as we have mentioned, they will 
fill a branch which is the form of a small tree 
or shrub two feet high from the pot, and cover 
every part of it, even if it be tolerably bushy, 
with its delicate starry leaves and flowers. 
The appearance, when grown this way, is far 
less artificial than it would be on the best 
fashioned trellis that could be formed ; for, 
when well covered, they look like a handsome 
shrub. In one season of growth like this the 
bulbs will increase considerably in size, and 
may the next season be grown on a much 
larger scale. But, although these plants are 
grown often from imported bulbs, they can be 
raised from cuttings, and grown into bulbs in 
a season or two quite adequate to the wants 
of the cultivator. These cuttings are to be 
taken off with great care, and cut up to a leaf 
(which is always at an eye), and placed in sand 
on the top of the same kind of stuff they are 
grown in. The mode of doing this is to 
nearly fill a pot, say within an inch of the 
top, with the compost, which should be levelled 
and settled by striking the pot against the 
table once or twice. On this put three quarters 
of an inch of silver sand, which must be 
levelled and watered ; then, with a small stick, 
make a hole in the sand down to the compost, 
but not into it, and plant the cuttings down 
to it. This pot must be then placed in gentle 
bottom heat, and a bell glass put over the 
cuttings, so as to touch the sand, and keep 
away the air. Every morning the glass must 
be wiped dry. The cuttings need only be 
long enough to have one or two ■ leaves above 
the sand. These will strike freely, but will re- 
quire the greatest care to pot off, because the 
fibres will be excessively weak and easily 
broken. They should be potted off in large 
sixty-sized pots, because, though very small 
and tender, there would be danger of the 
small pots drying too quickly for want of more 
earth. Here they must undergo the same 
treatment as small bulbs, except that they 
will suffer much earlier for want of water 
than bulbs would, yet they must not be kept 
wet, for they would damp off. All the care 
here required will be that small sticks should 
be in the pot to let them run up, and it will 
not hurt them to top them when they get a 
foot long; and see that, when the pots are full 
of roots, they have a shift. In this way they 
will be grown into bulbs, and must not be dis- 
turbed at the end of the season, but remain in 
the last pots after the plant dies down, until 
they come up again in the spring. Ju raising 
them from seed, which may be saved well 
from good plants flowered early, the, best 
mode is to plant the seeds an inch apart in a 
good-sized pot, and in moderate heat. In the 
ordinary stove will do, or a moderate hot-bed, 
not placing the seeds more than a quarter 
of an inch under the surface, and choosing 
the month of February for the sowing. When 
they are well up, they may be transplanted into 
large sixty-sized pots, and grown on the sam< 
as cuttings would be grown. Hitherto the 
Tropcaolum Minus. 
Tropa3olum Tricolorum, or Tricolor, has been 
the only one upon which gardeners have 
attempted to show their skill in training; and 
while showing their skill, have, for the most 
part, displayed as great want of taste. The plant 
has been shown on great round shields of wire- 
work, or trellises of various forms, completely 
artificial, and as unlike a plant as possible. 
If, as indeed must be the case, a plant is to be 
supported by something, it should be some- 
thing that can be understood. If a pillar 
of any kind were substituted for flat round 
shields, which seem to belong to nothing, and 
perfectly out of place, it would be more na- 
tural. A column, or a portion of a broken 
column, would be more like nature, because it 
is reconcilable with common sense,, and does 
no violence to the taste. But when flowers 
are trained on fantastically-formed trellises, 
they should be associated with nothing but 
what is equally fantastical. It spoils a general 
collection of well-grown and naturally-ma- 
naged plants, to see specimens of the most 
