August 9, 1883. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
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12th Sunday after Trinity. Ostend Show (four days.) 
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Royal Horticultural Society ; Fruit and Floral Committees at 11 A.M.; 
Eastbourne Show. [Weston-super-Mare Show. 
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THE FUCHSIA. 
HIS old favourite is not grown in many parts of 
the country either so extensively or so well as it 
deserves. Scarlet Pelargoniums and Tuberous 
Begonias are very well in their way, imparting 
a blaze and providing a show not perhaps 
attainable without their use; hut mere glare and 
gaudiness in a greenhouse, especially at a season 
when there is glare enough and to spare outside, 
has not the soothing influence of the grace and quiet beauty 
of the Fuchsia when well grown. 
True enough, skill of the commonest sort will provide a 
display of Zonals and Petunias, while little skill will provide 
Balsams and other plants which find their -way to the rubbish 
heap sooner or later ; but good culture is required to produce 
Fuchsias from 6 feet high and upwards perfectly furnished 
with growths, so that no stem or twig is seen, and so densely 
covered with flowers that 2 inches without blooms could not 
be found in the whole plant. 
Yet it is not so much skill that is wanted as love for the 
plant, for where love is there will be attention ; where love 
is not there will be inattention and failure. The raisers are 
partly to blame. Grand flowers have been produced of late 
years ; but the tree-like habit of Guiding Star and Bose of 
Castile have gone, or are only forthcoming as the result of 
consummate skill and untiring pains. 
The soil is the main item in Fuchsia culture. It needs 
something solid and good. No natural loam is half good 
enough or rich enough ; but one-year-old turf from off a 
medium loam may be taken as the best basis; still, as it is 
only what is artificially supplied that is to be depended on, 
that rather than the medium ought to be most thought of in 
preparing the compost. 
The Fuchsia requires nitrogen, phosphates, and potash. 
We have never found a better way of giving these than by 
laying up good loam months before it was w T anted with 
layers of cow manure between, and then a soaking of urine. 
Under cover no rain washed the manure out, the soil fixed 
the potash and the phosphates, and turned the urea to 
nitrates. Meanwhile the cow manure had become soil—not 
the greasy fermented soil of a dungbed, and not the acidulated 
humus manufactured by worms—but sweet, light, whole¬ 
some, nutritious soil, gifted with root-producing, root-feeding 
powers. Soil so prepared would produce luxuriance in 
anything—for a time. 
But “nothing in this world can last,” and nitrates 
speedily leave a soil through which water runs as it usually 
does in pots. Manure is not so rich in phosphates as one might 
think, and potash and phosphates are soon exhausted when 
only a small pot holds the rooting ground of a large Fuchsia. 
When the loam is chopped up for using at potting time then 
we sprinkle a little bonedust to yield future supplies of phos¬ 
phates and also ammonia. The main supply of nitrogen we 
leave to the future, and other minerals (over and above the 
phosphates and potash) are supplied in the merest sprinkling 
of wood ashes. When the loam is very heavy or fibreless a 
little sand is given—only then. So far as at present can be 
done a perfect soil is thus secured. 
In the matter of raising plants the only beginning is with 
cuttings. Of course only those who have old plants from 
which to take cuttings can thus begin. Those who have not 
cannot get their young plants in too small a state. As 
usually treated plants of any great size have a check, and 
are not worth having. We cannot tell what time of the year 
is best for striking cuttings, but prefer January. Cuttings 
taken then and properly treated will be three, four, five, six- 
feet-high bushes, and beautifully furnished the same year. 
A heat of 60° is needed to do the cuttings justice, and 
moisture to prevent flagging is necessary. If this can be 
given, an open bed is much to be preferred to a close case. 
Open porous loam with just the suspicion of sharp sand at 
the base of the cuttings is the best medium to strike them in, 
and it should be on a bed or in a box. The single-pot 
system is the plan to be avoided. 
If the soil is kept warm—about 70°, and the cuttings never 
flag, they will speedily root and commence growing. If the 
soil is such as we have described they will grow vigorously. 
If only ordinary loam is used, and the orthodox leaf soil 
and sand added, do not be disappointed if they fail to move. 
When the growth is started the plants should be transferred 
into 4-inch pots. The loam should be made friable and 
porous, and only moderately firm. The crush of roots will 
make it too firm by-and-by. Moreover, we want the present 
roots to multiply rapidly to seize in the nitrates and pass 
them up to the leaves to be manufactured into plant tissue 
One crock in the bottom of the pots, which must be without 
a suspicion of clogging dirt, will be enough. The soil should 
be warm. Keturned to their warm quarters, given plenty of 
room, and all the air and light possible, they will grow very 
rapidly, and in a few weeks will take another shift. 
Long before shifting is necessary, for we prefer a pot 
pretty well filled with roots, we are not sure but the nitrogen 
in the soil may be getting scarce. As soon, therefore, as 
the surface of the pot is white with roots, as it will surely do 
in open wholesome loam kep>t prop>erly moist, yet never so 
wet as to induce souring, we begin to give liquid manure. 
Nothing surpmsses urine. The water is just tainted with 
this, and the result justifies the practice. The urea in it as 
well as the potash are directly assimilable, and so long as 
every drop of water contains both the plants never want. 
Anything above a taint under such conditions is too strong. 
Staking always requires attention, and also pinching. 
When rapidly grown in a temperature of from 55° to 65° 
and well fed pinching is hardly wanted, except with the 
“improved” varieties. Varieties of good habit grow T the 
shape of a Spruce Fir naturally, and that form is the best. 
One stake is sufficient up the centre. A leader must be kept 
for training to this. If it grows freely and furnishes side 
shoots plentifully let it grow. If it fails to furnish these, or 
if it shows flowers, the top must be pinched and repinched, 
and a new leader selected continually. The side growths 
should be similarly treated, and tied in to furnish a pyramid 
as perfect as possible. 
In repotting keep the soil rather low in the pots, and 
when the pots are filled with roots top-dressing and mulch¬ 
ing can begin. The roots always come up, and must 
both be fed and protected. Large pots are not advisable. 
If such soil as we have recommended, and such manure 
be applied as advised, plants from 6 to 7 feet high, halt 
covering the pot, and 3 to 4 feet through at base, 
may be grown in robust health in 10-ineh pots. But 
they must never once become dry. By continually syring¬ 
ing, occasionally putting a little soft soap in the water, 
green fly and red spider will never be seen, and by judicious 
shading the flowering period may be kept up for months. It 
urine dare not be used because of the smell, nitrate of potash 
will make a capital substitute, better than sulphate of 
ammonia. 
Fuchsias so fed may b) kept in good health for years in 
