212 
THE FLORIST AND P0M0L0GIST. 
much of the old soil from the balls as can well be done, and potting afresh 
in new compost. 
These plants can be started into growth in vineries, and only be taken to 
the conservatory when coming into flower, and after done blooming they could 
be removed to some other place ; thus they would only occupy space in the 
conservatory while in flower, and few plants are more ornamental than they 
are when in full bloom. 
Stour ton. ' . M. Saul. 
SALVIA PATENS. 
How grand this has been! and even now, September 18th, it forms one ot 
the most effective beds in our flower garden. All blue beds here pale before 
the Salvia—Purple King looks weedy, Ageratum extremely dull—in fact, for 
effect, it is almost unsurpassed. The last few years it has not been used much 
for bedding-purposes; the rage for novelty has, to some extent, put a good 
many things we once highly prized into the background. I should like to 
know whether Salvia patens has generally done well this season; if so, I fancy 
it might be employed far more extensively another year. We lift all our old 
plants and pot them, keeping them in a cold house, and in spring introduce 
them into some of the forcing-houses, where they throw up a good crop of 
cuttings, which strike freely at that season. We also save all the seed possible ; 
seedlings make first-class plants for bedding, and if sown early in March, in 
heat, will make strong plants by the third week in May, and will commence 
blooming early. This Salvia requires to be bedded out rather thickly, and kept 
well pegged down at the outset; when the bed is well covered it may then be 
allowed to throw up its spikes of azure blue, which are surpassingly brilliant 
on a bright day. 
Wrotham Park. John Eddington. 
REMARKS ON FRUIT-TREE CULTURE.—No. 2. 
In my last I observed that the best season for planting is October, and as 
early in the month as possible ; and although the operation may be performed 
at any time from then to the beginning of April, it is very certain that late- 
planted trees are, with every care and trouble that can be bestowed upon them, 
invariably far in the rear of the early-planted ones, and, to my thinking, the 
reason is very obvious—because at the beginning of October the principle 
which vegetable physiologists call the descending sap is in motion, and the 
effect of this is, as I have proved from repeated observation, to produce an 
abundant emission of rootlets ; and the mere act of lifting the tree, if carefully 
performed, does not interfere with this principle, and therefore the tree will 
commence at once to re-establish itself by striking out roots and otherwise pre¬ 
paring for the call which will be made upon its energies with the returning 
spring. Such a tree, for all practical purposes, is a good season in advance of 
one which is planted after the time when the roots will be called upon to per¬ 
form their functions, and assist in the future development of the exterior 
branches. In fact, when planted so late, the tree necessarily becomes partially 
exhausted in the mere struggle for existence ; so that by the time the roots and 
branches can begin to act upon each other, the tree is only able to make a good 
autumn growth. Although much may be done with this by careful treatment, 
it rarely ripens perfectly, and is often of a pithy or spongy nature, and not nearly 
so well to work upon in future operations as the wood which is formed in the 
