236 
PELARGONIUMS.—HINTS TO CROSS BREEDERS. 
plants should have a good soaking, and at all intervening times from the commencement of their 
growth hi early spring to the end of then blooming, soft water must he used. 
All strong watery shoots, as they make then appearance, should have then extreme point pinched out 
when six inches long, and through the whole season of growth continual attention is necessary to tying, 
training, and taking off the suckers of worked plants as soon as they appear. From the commencement 
of then growth to the end of the blooming time, 
as soon as the least sign of green fly is visible, they 
must be fumigated. Caterpillars in the leaves and 
buds during growth should also be looked closely 
after. If the weather is fine about the middle of 
Mav, a little shade mav be given for a few horns 
each day, with thin gauze, as the buds by this time 
■will be swelling. On the opening of the blossoms 
the plants should be moved into a cold north house, 
and kept rather close and shaded, where they will 
bloom finely; a cold pit, facing the north, will 
answer the same purpose, but in this situation 
they cannot be seen to advantage. 
The Roses having bloomed, all dead flowers 
should be cut off, and the plants placed back in the 
pit from whence they were taken; here they may 
have plenty of air and light, and may remain until 
they have perfected their growth, during which 
time they may have liquid manure about once a-fort- 
night. After completing their growth, let them be 
placed out-doors in an open airy situation. Any 
straggling blooms or suckers that may be produc¬ 
ed, being cut off. The plants may remain out of 
doors until the end of September, when they will require fresh potting ; this may be performed in the 
same way as the potting in the preceding season, except that the balls may be reduced a little more, 
and the plants being old will require a portion of the old wood to be cut out, and the young wood 
shortened, thinned, tied down, and trained as before. 
-4- 
PELARGONIUMS. —HINTS TO CROSS BREEDERS. 
By Mu. H. Rosier, Broo kt, a xes Nursery, Beacxheath. 
HERE is there a plant so ‘universally admired or generally cultivated as the Pelargonium; or, 
when we consider its merits for dncoration or purposes of exhibition, so justly entitled to a place 
in every collection P What would our great annual exhibitions be without them, where their brilliant 
flowers and fine foliage make a great display ? But, notwithstanding this, if we may judge by the 
prizes offered, they are losing ground in the estimation of the managers of one of the leading 
exhibitions for next season. It will be said they are deteriorating in quality, or that the breeders are 
not producing varieties fit to compete with those of former seasons ; and perhaps, to some extent, this 
may be true, for the improvements in this class of flowers have not been so great within the last year 
or two as we could wish, or as they ought to have been. Certainly there has been a few which have 
exemplified a little improvement in form, but new colours generally are wanting, and I may add, in 
many instances, good habits too are much desiderated. Fine habit appears too frequently to have been 
overlooked by the breeders, and the great aim, if we may judge by the productions of the last two or 
three years, has been scarlets and crimsons, and other high colours, while little or no attention has been 
paid to light or white ones—of which, at the present time, our collections (as far as the exhibitions 
show them) appear to be wanting—to prevent that sameness of colour which now prevails. A robust 
and stocky habit we think a great, if not the greatest feature in a Pelargonium. Next let them bloom 
freely, not only producing abundance of flowers, but trusses individually large, for though some of the 
seedlings of the last few years have been rich coloured, and the form of individual flowers exquisitely 
beautiful, they have been far too shy in producing them, and hence, to some extent, the reason of old 
kinds taking the prizes in classes where new and first-rate varieties ought only to compete. It is true 
that some of the best raisers have not been represented by the cultivators of new kinds, and so long as 
V 
ROSE : coup d’hebe. 
