MARCH. 
75 
mode of potting them these are of no use whatever to the plant, because 
they are not able to perform the duty for which they were by nature 
intended—to support the stem when growing and flowering. 
I will now explain the system by which I have found them to thrive 
best. Repot them every season, and pot them at once into the pots 
you intend them to flower in; the best season to perform this in is 
about the latter end of January. Use a soil composed of three parts 
turfy loam, well broken to pieces, to one part of well-rotted dung, with 
a good intermixture of road and silver sand. Prepare the pot in the 
usual way of draining, cover the drainage with the soil named above to 
about an inch in depth, and place the bulb on it in the centre of the 
pot, and cover it on all sides with silver or drift sand, which will cause 
it to turn out clean the following season, and protect it from the ravages 
of the wire-worm, &c. Then fill the pot with soil up to its proper 
height, settle it down well, but do not press too firmly. If the soil is 
used in a moist state they will not require watering until they begin to 
show themselves breaking through the surface. Place them in a cold 
pit where they can have plenty of light and air; they will require a 
slight covering in very sharp weather ; about the thickness of one mat 
will be quite sufficient. Let them remain in the pit until about the 
beginning of May, then remove them into some shaded situation out of 
doors; allow them to remain there until they come into bloom, when 
they can be removed into any place where they may be required. 
After they have finished blooming stand them out in the sun until 
they have died down, then stack them on their sides in some dry place, 
to prevent them receiving any moisture until they are again repotted. 
They may be increased very readily, either by the offsets they 
throw out so abundantly, or from the scales of an old bulb, or from 
seed. If you wish to seed them, it will be necessary to place them in 
heat (after they have shed the petals of the blossom) until the seed is 
ripened, otherwise it will not often be brought to maturity. If by 
scales, break them from off the bulb, and plant them in a pot precisely 
the same as cuttings, with the large end downwards and the point left 
out above the soil. 
Frogmore. E. Speed. 
OVERPOTTING PELARGONIUMS. 
I HAVE read with much surprise the lengthy remarks of Mr. David 
Thomson, of Dyrham Park, in the Florut of last month; it appears 
to me that ]\Ir. Thomson quite overlooks the fact that your reporter’s 
remarks were made in reference to the plants in question, as they 
appeared at the show, not half in bloom, and not as to what they might 
become some weeks after. What would have been the fate of any one 
of the collections if they had been like Mr. David Thomson’s 
plants, not half in bloom ? Certainly they would have been placed by 
the judges much lower in the list of prizes, if placed at all. 
Mr. Thomson says, his main object in exhibiting the plants was to 
