English winter, some shelter must be provided for them during that season. Room for a considerable 
number may commonly be found in the house of the owner of the garden : they can be placed in windows 
and in passages, where they will remain in health, if in cold weather the house is continually inhabited. If 
this cannot be done, shrubby plants may be well, though not so well preserved, by taking them up at the 
beginning of winter, cutting back the branches, and stowing the roots in a dry cellar, whence they must be 
taken early in the spring, and potted and watered in a shed room or very sheltered place to forward them 
for the summer. The best method of keeping them in the winter (and in this method with care there is no 
risk whatsoever of loss,) is in a brick pit with two or three glass lights, warmed by a small stove and flue : 
the cost of building such a pit will usually be about £10. Some breakage of glass must of course be con- 
sidered as an annual cost. The quantity of fuel used will be too small to take into consideration ; a few 
cinders are all that is requisite. Thousands of plants may be kept in one such pit. 
Plants may be multiplied in many ways, by budding, grafting, innarching, by layers, pipings, and cut- 
tings, by suckers, the division of roots and tubers, and by seed : and there are very few species from which 
by some of these methods an increase cannot be obtained. So easy indeed is the multiplication of plants, 
and so large a number of new plants can with proper management be raised from one original stock in the 
course of a year, that the nursery gardeners find it impossible (excepting in rare instances) to maintain a 
high price for a new flower beyond two or three years : the first year the price of a new flower may be 
£5, the second it will be about 30s., the third year not mere than 2s. 6d. The method applicable to the 
greatest number of plants, and which is successful with ordinary management, is that of cuttings : from the 
parent plant small slips or cuttings are taken where the wood is not very tender, and if practicable at a joint. 
The cuttings should be planted about two inches apart, in large pots or boxes, and the pots placed in a 
moderately warm hot-bed, shaded from the sun. In about a fortnight they will strike root, and begin to 
grow. They should then be gradually hardened, be put as far as practicable, into separate pots, and re- 
moved into the flue-pit, where plenty of air must be given them in the day-time to prevent their damping 
off, and a fire be lit before frosty nights : the additional security of mats thrown over the frames must be 
used when the weather is unusually severe. The time of removing the plants from their winter quarters must 
depend upon their nature and the climate in which they are to grow. The last week in May or the first in 
June, is the earliest time at which the tenderest will bear a thorough exposure ; for one or two previous 
weeks, they should be hardened by gradual exposure to the wind and cold nights, care being taken to pro- 
tect them with mats if either should be in excess. The cultivation of dahlias is commenced in the second 
or third week in February, when the roots which have been taken up in the autumn should be put into a 
hot-bed, kept, as far as practicable, at a uniform heat of 62° to 65°; a little of the earth in the bed should 
be spread over them, and water liberally given them once a day. The roots will then push out suckers, one 
from each eye: these should be separated from the bulbs: a few fibres of the old root being tom off with 
them, and being treated after the manner of cuttings, will strike and be ready to plant out at the end of 
May. It is a fault with gardeners generally that their dahlias flower too late. The first flowers are seldom 
perfect, and it often happens that the plants have not long reached their prime before they are either pinched 
by cold nights or perhaps altogether destroyed by frost. It is therefore desirable that the plants should 
never be checked in the early stages by want of heat or otherwise. Perennial herbaceous plants may be 
easily multiplied by dividing the roots either in the autumn or in spring. Annuals are principally raised 
from seed sown in April and May, either upon a hot-bed, from which they must be transplanted, or in the 
situation in which they are to grow. Sweet-peas and mignonette, nemophylla insignis, poppies, &c., are 
very shy of being transplanted unless from pots. Mallows, coreopsis, China, and German asters, French 
and African marigolds, eutoca, viscida, nolana prostrata, &c., will be better raised on a hot-bed. New 
annuals are continually produced : we do not, however, consider them generally as a desirable class of 
flowers. 
There are two methods of arranging flowers with a view to their display — 1st, putting each species in a 
separate bed ; 2nd, mixing two or more species in one bed. Each has its merits, and in every garden both 
should be practised. When flower-beds situated close to each other are to be filled with one species only, 
it will be requisite to consider the height and colour of the flowers to be planted, that both symmetry and 
harmony may be preserved. Yellow flowers, especially among those that grow from six inches to two feet 
in height, are more numerous than flowers of any one other colour, and care must be taken not to plant 
them in undue proportion. When several species are to be planted in the same bed, the largest bed must 
be chosen, the tallest species be placed in the middle, and various colours mixed together; sufficient space 
should be left for each plant to grow freely without interfering with or confusing its branches with those 
that are next to it. Flowers for the most part like a rieh, light, new soil. The spot chosen for a flower- 
garden should be dry, open to the sun, and sheltered from wind and cold.* 
* Cyclopaedia of the Society for the diffusion of Useful Knowledge. 
