98 
FLOWER GARDEN. 
beaten if critically examined by the show 
flowers. 
Cockup's Eclipse 
Metcalfe's Lancashire Hero 
Gorton's Champion 
Warris's Blucher 
Franklin's Bellona 
Gable's Duke of Wellington 
Page's Duch. of Oldenburg. 
Fearson's Badajos 
Moore's Violet 
Page's Lord Hill 
Smith's Britannia 
Yate's Lord Collingwood 
Foden's Fair Rosamond 
Pillar of Beauty * 
In choosing these plants at a nursery, you 
should satisfy yourself that they are firm in 
the pots, well rooted, thick at the collar, where 
the lower leaves spring from it, and well- 
hearted, like a good cabbage on a small scale. 
They should be bloomed in the pots they are 
bought in, unless they are very small indeed, 
for disturbing them may check them ; never- 
theless, if there happen to be any fine plants 
in pots too small, they must be repotted in 
pots a proper size, without disturbing a single 
fibre of the root. Should there be any warm 
rains, and the wind be not blustering, the 
lights may be taken off, and the plants have 
the full benefit of as much as will fairly water 
them, but not more ; the lights should then be 
closed in the evening and carefully covered ; 
for though frost does not often follow warm 
showers, yet it will happen sometimes; and 
the plants are in more danger when the com- 
post is wet. The same caution ought to be 
used after watering. in the ordinary way, and 
it will be as well to mention, that rain-water 
is far better than any other, if it be pure, but 
if water is caught from a roof on which pigeons 
congregate, it will sometimes be injuriously 
strong of their dung when the water is low, 
and damage the whole collection. When you 
buy new plants, see that they are not pot- 
bound nor water-logged ; for when a pot has 
be'en subject to the drip from a broken glass, 
or the drainage has been accidentally stopped, 
the soil in which a plant is growing will be 
found saturated so completely as to destroy 
an Auricula in a short time, so that it must 
at once be rejected if you are purchasing, and 
if it happen to one of your own plants, it must 
be shifted, the old crooks removed, new dry 
pot and crooks be placed there, and if the soil 
be sour, it must be all washed out carefully, 
and dry proper stuff substituted. The bottom 
of the pit or frame must be kept dry and clean, 
all dead leaves removed, and provision made 
for the water that falls through the pots to 
run away, instead of soaking into the ground. 
If, as is sometimes the case in March, the sun 
comes out an hour or two powerfully, cover 
the frame with a mat or light cloth, that will 
not shade too heavily, and tilt up the glass at 
the four corners, either with four bricks, or 
with small flower-pots, or wedges of wood, 
that the air may be freely admitted. 
* Glenny's Almanac. 
Dahlias. — Those which are not yet potted 
and set to work, may be done at once. Put 
them in pots no larger than necessary ; and, 
indeed, some of the tubers may be cut away, 
to prevent the necessary use of too large a 
one. Here they will throw up their shoots 
from the collar when they are put into heat, 
and the cuttings must be taken off when about 
three pair of leaves long. Some of the more 
experienced cultivators have followed our pre- 
vious directions, and by this time have cut- 
tings well rooted. If they are in pots holding 
more than one, they must be placed in pots 
singly ; and if any of them are of scarce 
kinds, which you are desirous of propagat- 
ing, they may have their tops cut off just 
below the third pair of leaves, and these tops 
may be struck as before directed for other 
cuttings. The plants will strike out shoots on 
both sides, which in turn may be shortened, 
and thus an early struck cutting may be made 
the means of producing a number of plants, 
which is occasionally a great object, although 
it does not produce them so strong nor so 
serviceable as those of the first strike from 
tuber shoots. It is questionable, also, whether 
a plant so produced will bloom so well, al- 
though there are kinds that do not suffer from 
such treatment. All the cuttings, struck and 
not struck, should be watered over the foliage 
as well as their roots, and be shut up and 
shaded for a few hours ; but it is a very good 
plan to water in the evening, at shutting-up 
time. As those plants which are not intended 
to be cut down, grow into a fair size for plant- 
ing out, they should be removed to a cooler 
frame, that they may become gradually more 
hardened ; for although nothing short of frost 
will hurt them, when prepared by cooling 
gradually, they would suffer considerably if 
taken from a hot-bed to the open air direct. 
In potting the tubers for breaking the buds 
to form cuttings, every appearance of decay, 
however slight, should be removed, even if it 
cause two-thirds of the roots to be cut away. 
Seedling tubers, that are to be planted whole, 
may be at once put into the ground four 
inches deep ; they will not come up before 
the time they will bear the weather. 
Annuals. — Whatever annuals of the ten- 
der kind are not yet sown, may be now sown 
on a slight hot-bed made in the ordinary way, 
but about two feet high, with six inches of 
mould on the top ; on this you may place a 
common garden frame or hand glasses, and 
sow the seeds within the space they cover. 
Sow the seeds in rows, as the most convenient 
for the keeping of the different sorts separate. 
That they must be protected by glass is cer- 
tain ; even many of those which are called 
hardy, but which are nevertheles sufficiently 
tender to be killed by one degree of frost, re- 
