490 
THE GARDENER’S ASSISTANT. 
Propagation .—The Poinsettia increases readily 
from cuttings in spring, taken off with a heel 
when the shoots are about 4 inches long, in¬ 
serted in sand, and placed in a brisk heat; 
when rooted, put them singly in 3- or 4-inch 
pots, in good turfy loam to which is added 
one-sixth of leaf-mould with a little sand; 
they should be kept in a temperature of 68° 
or 70° at night, with a rise of 10° by day. 
The plant has an almost uncontrollable habit 
of running up with a single straight shoot 
without any disposition to branch. Young 
plants are grown on without stopping, but to 
prevent their getting up too high they should 
be kept all through the growing season with 
their heads almost touching the roof, and 
allowed sufficient air when the weather is fine; 
give enough water, and as soon as the pots get 
filled with roots move them into others 6 or 8 
inches in diameter, using soil similar to that 
for the last potting, and treat as before, syring¬ 
ing them freely overhead in the afternoons. 
Towards the beginning of August, when they 
have made plenty of roots, they may be gradu¬ 
ally inured to more air, and either removed to 
a house without fire-heat, where they can have 
air night and day whilst the weather is warm, 
or stood out-of-doors under a south wall in the 
full sun for a month; but before there is any 
approach to cold nights they must be taken 
inside and kept in a temperature of 50° during 
the night. Some of them may be put into a 
warm house in October, where they will come 
into flower, the remainder being brought into 
heat later on for succession. In a temperature 
of 55° the flowers last longer than if kept where 
it is hotter. 
Where plants are wanted dwarf, say from 
8 to 12 inches high, and in 6-inch pots, about 
the beginning of September, cut the shoots half¬ 
way through, 6 or 7 inches from the top, and 
leave them in this state upon the plants for ten 
days until the cut portion has become callused 
over; then completely sever them and place in 
3-inch pots in a mixture of half sand and loam 
in a close frame, where they will root in about 
three weeks, after which give air gradually, and 
ultimately, as soon as they evince ability to bear 
it, fully expose them; move into 6-inch pots in 
soil as before advised, and keep them as near 
the glass as possible. If they show a disposi¬ 
tion to get taller than desired, again half-sever 
them at a similar distance below the tops, and 
after they are callused as before, take them off 
and root them. 
When the flowering is over, put the plants 
in any out-of-the-way place where a tempera¬ 
ture of 55° can be kept up, and here let them 
remain until May, Avhen they should be cut 
down and placed in a temperature of 60°. 
They will here soon push into growth, when 
cuttings, as required, can be taken off, and the 
old plants destroyed or grown on if wanted. 
Where it is desired, they can be grown in 
succeeding years to a large size by giving them 
more root-room, cutting them well back each 
season before starting into growth, and re¬ 
moving the exhausted soil, which the spare 
nature of the roots allows to be readily shaken 
away. 
Primrose and Polyanthus (Primula 
vulgaris ). — One of the prettiest of native plants, 
whether wild in a wood or copse or hedge¬ 
row, or cultivated in the garden. It is most 
effective when planted in the wild garden in 
imitation of its position in nature, and it may 
be used as an edging to a flower border in 
partially shaded positions. Under cultivation 
it has varied considerably, perhaps the most, 
remarkable of all the varieties thus obtained 
being the blue-flowered seedlings raised by Mr. 
G. F. Wilson. A very large-flowered form ol 
the type has lately been raised and distributed 
under the name of Evelyn Arkwright (fig. 598). 
There are also purple, crimson, rose, and white 
sorts, some of them double-flowered. They 
reproduce themselves fairly true from seeds, 
which should be sown early in spring in boxes 
or pans in a cold frame, pricking the seedlings 
out on a moist shaded border as soon as they 
are large enough to handle. If to be used for 
filling beds for spring effect they should be 
grown on in rich, moist soil in a shaded position 
in a nursery or kitchen-garden bed until 
October, when they may be lifted and planted 
in the flower-beds, watering them in freely if the 
weather be at all dry. Here they may remain 
till May, when they will require fresh quarters 
for the summer. They should be lifted and 
broken up if an increase of stock is required; 
indeed single offsets make the best plants by 
the following spring; they may be planted in 
a bed as advised for young seedlings. Very 
choice varieties can only be kept by this annual 
division, and they do not always produce offsets, 
freely. 
Although there is a well-marked difference 
between the true Primrose and the Cowslip 
(P. veris) they are really essentially very closely 
related, and consequently they are supposed to 
have crossed in a wild state. “The cultivated 
