PRACTICAL GARDENING. 
OPERATIONS FOR SEPTEMBER. THE FLOWER GARDEN. 
Dahlias. — September brings to the flower- 
gardener abundant labour. If he be exhibiting 
the flower of the month — Dahlias, his attention 
must be incessant. However careful he may 
have been in the earlier months, he will be 
kept on the alert by swarms of vermin; if 
he have been careful he will have enough to 
do ; but if there has been any carelessness in 
the proper season, his case will be almost 
hopeless — whole collections of Dahlias have 
almost defied their owners to cut a dozen 
flowers ; and, among good showers, it is an 
established rule that blooms mutilated by ver- 
min are disqualified. All manner of contri- 
vances have been used to protect solitary 
blooms when plants have been infested ; but 
the ends of the petals are, in nine cases out of 
ten, destroyed before the bud has been suffi- 
ciently developed to be calculated on with any 
certainty. We have given caution enough 
upon the subject of earwigs — the most in- 
veterate and mischievous enemy the dahlia 
growers have to provide against. We have 
already said, over and over again, that one 
killed in the early part of the season, is worth 
twenty at a later period ; nor are caterpillars 
less mischievous, though much easier to detect. 
Among the many contrivances for keeping off 
the enemies of the Dahlia, the placing of the 
buds in a bag of gauze is one pretty successful, 
but it is apt to cramp the flower. Other plans 
for putting the opening buds on a small table 
under aflower-pot have already been mentioned. 
Cotton tied round the stem and daubed with 
tar will sometimes keep them off, as no insect 
likes tar ; but it is, nevertheless, objectionable 
to the grower, who, in most cases, had better, 
by far, when the plants are first out, look for 
the plagues while scarce. As the plants are 
now growing rapidly, and, unless supported, 
are easily broken, extra stakes should be 
procured, and used for fastening up the side 
branches ; let them be placed round the cen- 
tre, one on each side only, so as to fan out the 
plant, instead of making it a round bush. We 
have already said, that blooms are the better 
for being grown in the open air, and covering 
injures them in colour and texture ; neverthe- 
less, if you are much plagued with earwigs, you 
must take some means of protecting them, and 
covering them completely seems to be the most 
effectual. If the weather be dry, syringe them 
all over, and water the whole of the ground they 
occupy, not merely at their roots, for the dry 
earth around would soon absorb it, and they 
would be but little aided by it — partial water- 
ing is of little use to anything. Whenever 
you select a bud, which you think likely to 
make a bloom, take off the end of the branch 
it is upon, and pick off from every part of the 
branch, and, indeed, of the plant, all the buds 
that are not useful, long before they are large 
enough to distress the plant. You may also 
take out weak, useless shoots, and such as are 
decidedly in the way of more useful shoots, 
but by no means follow the example of many, 
who cut the plant to a mere skeleton, under 
the mistaken idea that it increases the size of 
