THE AMATEUR’S FLOWER GARDEN. 
5 7 
are cultivated. The practitioner will not proceed far without 
discovering that it is a matter of the greatest importance to 
make the most of the daylight that can be obtained in com¬ 
bination with shelter. Various contrivances are resorted to 
with this object, and of necessity rectangular receptacles of 
some sort or other take precedence of circular ones in the 
economy of space. Bedding plants thrive in a most satisfac¬ 
tory manner in all their earlier stages of growth in shallow- 
wooden boxes, and in many cases these may be obtained from 
the household store free of cost. In any case the boxes should 
be comparatively small for convenience of lifting, but the only 
important point is that they should be shallow, say, averaging 
four inches in depth, or six inches at the utmost. Having 
command of waste boxes and waste cardboards in considerable 
quantity years ago, we adopted a mode of combining the two 
which resulted in a great saving of both space and labour in 
the propagation and preserving of bedding plants. We must 
endeavour to explain the method, because to many a reader it 
may prove invaluable. 
In the diagrams on p. 58, the first represents the box ready 
for use. Each compartment is filled with suitable compost, 
say, loam two parts, leaf-mould one part, sharp sand one part. 
The little seedlings or newly-struck cuttings are planted in the 
divisions singly, and at planting-out time each plant is pre¬ 
sented to the hand in a single square block ; there is no divi¬ 
sion necessary, not a fibre as fine as gossamer need be injured 
or disturbed. The sides and bottom of the box are wood; the 
divisions are thick cardboard. Suppose a fig box with the 
bottom knocked out. How, across the bottom, at each end, 
nail a strip of wood. Hext cut a piece of thin wood to make 
a loose bottom, the full size of the box, and drop it into the 
box to rest upon the two slips. Suppose the cardboard divi¬ 
sions next inserted, then, by turning the box on one side, and 
placing both hands against the loose bottom, as in Fig. 3, a 
little pressure with the fingers wmuld thrust out the loose 
bottom and the cardboard divisions. The two slips over which 
the hands pass remain firm, because nailed down to the bottom 
edge of the box. You have only to suppose the divisions filled 
with plants, and Fig. 3 wmuld explain the process of “ turning 
out” not one from a pot, but fifteen from a box. The bottom 
being loose, yields to the pressure of the hands, just as the 
large crock in the bottom of a pot yields to the pressure of a 
