448 
THE CALCEOLARIA. 
coloured blotches, but let them be the thickest 
ilowcr-, free from the indentures or scollop 
a on ili'' edge, and grow them in a good 
rich bed of loam, and peat, and dung, in 
equal parts, in the open air, turning out the 
bulbs from the pol whole, and planting them 
without disturbing the root. Here, if it be a 
good season, you may hope to save seed in 
abundance ; ami, if you have no others in the 
garden, or near it, you may expect line flowers 
from it when you have taken the trouble to 
bow and raise plants to bloom. 
RAISING FROM SEED. 
The seed of the Calceolaria is very small, 
anil the pods should be taken off when turning 
yellow, and laid to dry in a large sheet of paper, 
under a hand-glass, that the wind may not dis- 
turb it. In the early spring this may be sown 
thinly in pans, well drained with crocks, and 
covered with a hand-glass, in the green-house, 
or under the glass of a garden-frame ; when 
they have attained a sufficient size to handle, 
they may be picked out into other seed-pans, 
an inch apart, and allowed to grow until they 
are large enough to be in each othei-'s way. 
They may then be potted in sixty-sized pots, 
and placed in a pit or frame, there to grow, 
under tolerably attentive management as to 
being kept neither dry nor wet. If the green- 
fly make its appearance, they must be fumi- 
gated with tobacco smoke, not too strongly, as 
it has been known to kill all the young shoots. 
The smoke must be too dense for a man to 
breathe in ; but when the house is tolerably 
well filled, it must be left. If, on going into 
the house, the fly is seen lying about the sur- 
face of the soil, they may be syringed at once 
with clear lukewarm water, about as hot as it 
would get in a stove ; use a fine rose for this, 
so that it may be applied with some force. If 
you have shelves near the top of the house 
that will hold all the plants, you may smoke 
them enough without leaving the house, as the 
smoke ascends, and will almost before your 
eyes disturb the whole community ; and a 
good syringe immediately afterwards, with 
the fine rose directed straight to the plants, 
will go at once to the mischief, and wash the 
principal off. The plants must be examined 
afterwards to see that none of those which 
have fallen are alive ; for they would soon 
return to the plant, which would be covered 
all over in an incredibly short time, only from 
a few scattered about the pot that may have 
recovered after the smoke has passed away. If 
the roots of the pot reach the sides, and begin 
to mat a little, they may be changed to size 
forty-eight ; and if they should, after that, 
grow still stronger, they may be once more 
shifted to size thirty-two, in which they will 
bloom to great advantage ; but few people 
care to grow seedlings very large until they 
bave seen what kind of properties they pos- 
sess. When they flower, which will be in 
Spring, you must select your favourites, ac- 
cording as they approach the standard of per- 
fection. They must be, free from that indenta- 
tion which is the ruling fault of many, and 
which is not tolerable under any circum- 
stances. They must be round in front, and 
as much inflated as you can select them ; not 
that you can get them as you like ; but keep 
the form of a cherry in your mind, and the 
nearer they are like that the better. When 
you have selected your best, put them by 
themselves for seed. If there should be any 
very remarkable colour in an ill-shaped one, 
and it would be a desirable colour in a new 
and good-shaped one, let it be saved among 
the others, because, although it will operate 
against their form, it may give its character 
to a better form than its own, and so make an 
advance. The remainder, or discarded ones, 
may be planted in the borders, or beds, or 
thrown away, but the selected ones should be 
placed by themselves, far out of reach of bad 
ones ; and if this cannot be done, it is better 
to throw all inferior ones away altogether rather 
than contaminate the seed of the good ones. 
It is the sowing of seeds among common ones 
that protracts the advancement of all flowers. 
Such is the tendency of flowers to go back to 
the worst, that there is hardly any tolerating a 
bad variety among a hundred good ones. The 
sorts which have been selected should be cut 
down, the earth in the pots stirred at top, and 
the loose earth thrown out to make room for 
fresh to be put in ; earth them up, and set to 
grow. In the course of a short time, the 
plants will spread, and the earth being well 
up among the base of the leaves, side shoots 
will spring out, many of which will have 
roots, and may be easily separated from the 
parent plant. Other side shoots that spring 
out further up the plant will require to be 
detached as close as possible to the stem of the 
old one, that they may be planted in pots, to 
strike without losing the bottom joint ; for, 
in fact, all the side shoots intended for cuttings 
should be taken when about six or eight leaves 
are visible, and they should then be taken as 
close to their base as possible, that their base 
may serve to strike from. The cutting up of 
the plant generally promotes lower shoots, 
which root while on the plant; the others must 
have the lower leaves carefully removed. 
The rooted shoots may be potted at once, in 
pots adapted to their size ; generally speaking, 
the sixty-sized pots are large enough. The 
lesser shoots, taken off the plant, must be 
placed in pots of loam and peat, with half an 
inch of sand at the top. This serves to wash 
down close to the cutting every time it is 
