FLORICULTURE. 
231 
becoming spotty and finally mouldy, particularly in the kinds of 
white Portugal and Syrian . 
We should be glad of further information on the malady alluded to 
by our correspondent, and hope that what he has proposed for illustra¬ 
tion will be answered by some one of our readers ; or that the matter 
will be further treated of by Mr. A. himself, who is so well able to 
expatiate on this, or any other subject of horticulture. 
Metropolitan Society of Florists and Amateurs. —The 
following were the subjects exhibited for prizes at their last meeting, 
viz., the best six plants of Orchidece , the best six stove plants not 
orchideses; and similar numbers of heath, geraniums, other green¬ 
house plants. Calceolarias, hardy American plants, hardy Rhododen¬ 
drons, hardy azalias ; the best twelve hardy and half-hardy dissimilar 
varieties of heart’s-ease ; the best one hundred ditto; the best twelve 
tulips; the best single specimen plants; and the best thirty-six 
varieties of cut flowers. We insert the above to show our distant 
or future readers, what the rage now is for flowers and flowering- 
plants. 
Floriculture. — Among the many improvements made in the 
cultivation of flowers the methods invented for retarding their flowering 
is one. It has been the opinion of many naturalists that the annual 
development of flowers yields more real satisfaction than if all were 
ever-flowering; that their disappearance for a season enhances the 
value of their return ; and as they succeed each other in a continual 
round, the loss of any one particular sort is never regretted. These ideas 
are much more applicable to herbaceous flowers, than those of shrubs 
or trees. The latter indeed, we have but little controul over, but 
shrubs are easy of management, and many of them are so beautiful in 
flowering and at the same time so finely scented that, we never can be 
tired of either their forms, colours, or fragrance. 
It is long since the method of procuring a late bloom of ranunculus, 
anemones, and roses has been practised. This was by late planting the 
tubers of the two former, and double pruning the flowering shoots of 
the latter. Double pruning is performed in autumn and again in 
April; in the first, five or six buds are left on the shoot, of these two 
or three will burst in the spring and would flower in June: but 
if these be pruned oft’ after shooting a little the lower buds will burst 
and yield their flowers a month later than the usual time. 
Whether this treatment of the rose-tree has been carried as far as it 
