100 
THE FLORIST. 
ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE CINERARIA. 
BY MR. DANIEL SMITH. 
This is a favourite plant of mine, and for some time I have paid 
much attention to its cultivation. If you think the detail of my 
practice will be of any assistance to those who fancy this beautiful 
tribe, I hand it as my offering to the pages of The Florist. 
When the blooming season is over, I place the plants full in the 
sun for about a month, giving them but little water,—just sufficient 
to keep them alive, and no more. Then I remove them into a shady 
situation, where they soon begin to grow very freely. In the middle 
of August I turn them out and shake the soil carefully from the 
roots, then I break off the shoots with as many young roots attached 
as possible; I place them in about 4-inch pots, with a mixture of 
one-third turfy loam, one-third leaf soil, one third silver sand, well 
mixed up together. After I have so done, I set them in a slight hot¬ 
bed, and water them with a fine-rosed pot, and then keep the lights 
shut close, and shade them for a few days until they are established, 
then leave the shading off, and give them air by degrees till the lights 
are quite removed in the day-time. At the end of September I pot 
them into 6-inch pots, well drained with pieces of potsherds, with 
a mixture one-half turfy loam, the other half leaf-soil and silver 
sand well rubbed and mixed together without being sifted; I then 
set them in a cold pit as near the glass as possible, and give them all 
the air I can when the weather will permit. I should just have said, 
it would be well to fumigate them with tobacco two or three times 
in the course of the season. In the beginning of November, I again 
shift them into 10 or 12-inch pots, according to the growth of the 
plants, into the same mixture as before, with plenty of drainage, 
and I again place them in a cold pit, and give them all the air I pos¬ 
sibly can. I always make it a practice to cover the pit up with 
straw and mats every night, in order to keep the frost from them. 
With this treatment my plants are growing freely, and have quite 
covered the surface of the pots, and are promising to have an abund¬ 
ance of bloom. 
l^ursery, Norwich. 
N.B. I think the following a good selection : 
Vernalis, Henderson’s. 
Defiance y do. 
Beauty of St. JohrCs Wood, do. 
Jenny Lind, Mackie’s. 
Formosa Purpurea, do. 
White Perfection, Allen’s. 
Conspicua, Short’s. 
Maid of Artois, Henderson’s. 
Attraction, do. 
Maritima, do. 
Standard, Henderson’s. 
Formosa, do. 
Royal Blue, do. 
Cramoisie Superieur, do. 
Duchess de Nemours, do. 
Gipsy, do. 
Enchantress, do. 
Queen of May, May’s. 
Prince Albert. 
Splendens. 
