498 
SELF-INSTRUCTION FOR YOUNG GARDENERS. 
fluence of the weather, except such heavy 
showers as would wash bare the seeds. 
" As soon, however, as the autumnal rains 
commence, it will he highly advantageous to 
remove the boxes to a warm aspect, and to 
protect them from all excessive rains, frosts, 
and snows, by the occasional shelter of a garden 
frame : allowing them, nevertheless, the benefit 
of the full air at other times, but more 
especially after the seminal leaf (for they have 
but one, being monocotyledonous plants) eager 
to commence the career of life, urges its fine 
setaceous point above the surface of the earth. 
This occurs sometimes about the end of the 
year, but oftener in earliest spring. After 
this, their birth, if I may use the expression, 
it is quite essential that they should have com- 
plete exposure to the air, even in frosty 
weather ; for they are prodigiously hardy with 
respect to cold ; screening them, however, 
occasionally, like early Radishes, with loose 
straw, from other injurious effects of frost ; so 
as to prevent their being raised out of their 
infantile beds by its baneful effects ; but re- 
move all the straw -covering again as soon as 
the frost is over. 
"In this manner may the young Crocuses be 
treated until the sun acquires sufficient power 
to dry the earth in their boxes, so as to require 
daily waterings ; for they must have gentle 
rose-waterings, whenever they are quite dry. 
It will be then found advantageous to remove 
them to a cooler, but not sheltered situation ; 
and here they may remain until their leaves 
die down ; giving them, as just hinted, at all 
times, and in every situation, while their 
leaves are growing, such discretional rose- 
waterings, when the sun is not shining, as 
they may reasonably appear to require ; but 
never until the earth they grow in becomes 
dry ; nor any whatever after their leaves 
begin to look yellow. 
" After this period, it is necessary to defend 
them from all humidity, except dews and gen- 
tle rains, until the end of August or beginning 
of September. 
"From weeds, and from worms, from slugs, 
and snails, it is almost needless to observe, 
they should constantly be kept as clear as 
possible ; and if the surface of the earth in 
their boxes is occasionally stirred with the 
point of a knife, or fine piece of stick, it will 
never fail to be attended with beneficial effects, 
and invigorate the bulbs; operating, no doubt, 
as a sort of hoeing, and like that important 
practice, as the writer of this paper conceives, 
proving salubrious to vegetables of every de- 
nomination, not only by lightening the soil, but 
by admitting new accesses of atmospheric air 
towards their roots ; and thereby facilitating, 
and stimulating their absorbent inspiration of 
its oxygen ; without a due supply of which, 
all vegetables, as well as animals, eventually 
become feeble and sick. 
" If, notwithstanding the precaution of thinly 
sowing the seeds, the plants in any of your 
seminal boxes should have grown so thickly 
together, as to have incommoded each other, 
it will be desirable to have such taken up, and 
replanted immediately, further asunder, in fresh 
earth, and about three quarters of an inch 
deep. But if they are not too crowded, they 
will require no shifting,this, their first autumn ; 
but merely about a quarter of an inch of fresh 
mould sifting over them, previously stirring 
and cleaning the surface of the old from moss 
and weeds, and observing not to bury the 
young bulbs, not yet so large as lentils, deeper 
than three quarters of an inch, or an inch at 
the most. 
" The second season requires exactly the same 
management as the first. But as soon as their 
second year's foliage has passed away, the 
roots should all be taken up, and replanted 
again the same, or following day, into fresh 
earth, of the same kind as before, about an 
inch deep, and as much apart, and treated as 
above. 
"Nor does the third season demand any 
alteration in their management, sifting over 
them in autumn half an inch of fresh earth. 
" The spring following, if they have been 
duly attended to, most of them will show flowers 
(a few, perhaps, having done so the season be- 
fore) in the midst of their fourth crop of 
leaves; fully rewarding with the cheering 
colours of their new faces, all the preceding- 
assiduity and care. 
" The seedling plants, after they have flower- 
ed, may to all intents and purposes be considered 
and treated as old ones ; and after their leaves 
have passed once more away, may be taken 
up, and replanted, in the open borders of the 
garden for good, at about two inches apart, 
and as many deep ; they may be placed as 
fancy requires, either in groups, patches, 
edgings, or full beds, and will flower strongly 
the ensuing spring." 
SELF-INSTRUCTION FOR 
GARDENERS.* 
YOUNG 
Poor Loudon's posthumous work on this 
subject has appeared, and with it a biographical 
notice of the writer, whose labours have- 
never been half appreciated; and many a 
reader has carelessly perused pages which 
have been written amid great bodily pain, and 
* Self-Instruction for Young Gardeners, Foresters, 
Bailiffs, Land-Stewards, and Farmers. By the late 
J. C. Loudon, F.L.S. H.S. &c. With a Memoir of 
the Author. London: Longman and Co. Paternoster 
Row. 
