152 
REVIEWS. 
case, the flower intended to receive the pollen should be covered with 
a fine gauze bag, a day or two before the flowers expand; and the 
covering be continued a few days after the operation is performed, lest 
flies defeat the object of the cultivator. This mode is seldom prac¬ 
tised, because mixing the plants in the common way answers very 
well. 
“ Cuttings may be made about the end of February, or beginning of 
March. The old roots should be placed in a hothouse, or hotbed, 
and the tubers covered with sand, or finely-sifted tanner’s bark, leaving 
only the crown exposed. They will soon put forth shoots ; these should 
be carefully detached when about two or three inches in length, and 
planted singly in small pots, filled with a compost of equal parts of 
■well-decomposed leaf-mould, hotbed decayed dung, fine sand, and 
sifted garden mould ; after the cuttings are inserted, they should be 
put into a mild hotbed, carefully shaded from the sun, and protected 
at night by mats. If, in applying linings of fresh dung to the bed, 
steam should enter, the plants will be liable to damp off, unless the 
lights be sufficiently raised to allow the steam to escape. In about a 
fortnight, or three w r eeks, the plants may be removed to a cold frame, 
and gradually enured to the open air. 
Where only a limited supply of strong plants is required, we have 
recently discovered that the finest plants are produced by detaching 
the young shoots when about two or three inches high, so as to include 
the cluster of buds surrounding the base of each shoot. Some care is 
necessary in this process; the shoot should be held near its base, by 
the finger and thumb; and by a slight motion of the hand to and fro, 
it will be detached from a kind of socket. If the operation be adroitly 
performed, the base of the shoot will present a convex surface, sur¬ 
rounded by a number of incipient buds; and a corresponding conca¬ 
vity will be found in the crown of the tuber, whence the shoot has 
been extracted. Plants raised by this mode not only produce the 
finest flowers, but the crowns invariably break the following spring; 
which is not always the case with plants raised from cuttings in the 
ordinary manner : it has been asserted that the cause of failure has, in 
many instances, arisen from the removal of the incipient buds at the 
base of the leaves of that portion of the cutting which is usually inserted 
in the grounds. 
ci There can be no doubt, however, if the buds be removed, the cutting 
will readily strike root, producing luxuriant foliage, and a profusion of 
flowers. But although the new tubers are numerous, and fully formed, 
it will, on inspection, be found that they are merely attached to a 
