THE LADIES MAGAZINE OF GARDENING. 
93 
found they had entirely disappeared! Thus ended all my hopes of a 
young progeny. I had heard that dividing the bulb was a means of 
increasing the plant; I therefore cut my old root in half, in hopes of 
producing two, and perhaps of renewing its growth in each ; but, alas ! 
this, too, failed, and for a time I could not look at my favourite plant 
with satisfaction. 
Ought I to have left the bulbs for a year in the pot without trans¬ 
planting? or ought the soil to have been anything different from garden 
mould ? Being anxious to grow the bulbs very strong, perhaps the soil 
was too rich. 
Could you inform me of the best method of increasing these lovely 
favourites ? I find it more expensive than I quite like having a constant 
supply from the nurseries, the old bulbs rotting off and disappearing quite 
unaccountably. H. B. 
London, 
February 19^, 1841. 
I fully sympathise with the admiration my correspondent expresses for 
Persian cyclamens, as they are, in fact, my favourite flowers; and I, too, 
have had hopes and disappointments about raising young plants, and 
keeping or losing old ones. The following observations are the result of 
my own experience, and of all I have been able to learn on the subject. 
The Persian cyclamen is very easily injured by wet, and it cannot be 
kept in a state of vigour for any length of time, unless it be kept quite 
dry during its season of repose : and on this account the tubers should be 
taken up as soon as it has done flowering, and kept out of the ground 
like the bulb of a fine tulip, till the season for planting (September) 
returns. When the plant has done flowering, which will generally be 
about April, the quantity of water should be gradually diminished, till at 
last the earth becomes quite dry. The tubers should then be taken up, 
and laid, with the fibrous roots uppermost, to dry. When these have 
withered, they should be rubbed off, and the tubers kept quite dry in a 
warm place till the beginning of September. They should then be planted, 
(care being taken not to bury the crown of the tubers) and regularly 
watered; being kept as warm as possible till the leaves have expanded, 
and the flower-buds have formed, when the plants should be placed in a 
cool, airy situation to flower. Where there is a hot-bed frame, the pots in 
which the plants grow may be plunged in that ; and where there is not, 
they should be kept in a warm room. It has been already mentioned that the 
tubers should not be entirely buried in the soil; in fact, they should be only 
lightly put in, the greater part appearing above the surface. The pots 
