flowered and produced seed, it will then be at the option of the 
owner either to save seed from his own flowers or to procure a 
fresh supply from the original source; but in either case to 
throw away the old plants. This saves all the trouble and ex¬ 
pense of endeavouring to keep them, with, after all, but ill suc¬ 
cess, during the winter months. 
Their cultivation is by no means difficult, and the following 
plans will, we think, ensure success Gather the seed as soon 
as it is ripe, and sow as soon as you are ready for it. Seed-pans 
are the most desirable things to sow the seed in; the soil 
should be light, consisting of leaf-mould and sand; the seed to 
be sown thinly, and lightly covered. It will be better to place 
them in a little heat, and when the seedlings are well up, 
place the pans in a shelf near the glass in the greenhouse. As 
soon as the young plants are large enough, pot them off singly, 
if they can be handled without injury, into thumb pots, the 
soil to be composed of loam, leaf-mould, and well-decayed 
manure, with the addition of silver sand, and then as the plants 
require it, keep on increasing the size of the pots, until they 
are in these about six inches in diameter; in these they may 
be left to bloom. During the whole period of their growth, they 
should be carefully watered, and greenfly (one of their greatest 
enemies) kept down by constant fumigating; as they are impa-* 
tient of frost and damp, an intermediate house, where they may 
be kept in a growing state during the winter, is admirably suited 
for them. When they are in bloom, at once discard all worth¬ 
less or indifferent flowers; and if you are particularly anxious 
about the seed, hybridize,- selecting those of good form as the 
mother plants, and using the pollen of the more striking colours 
to fertilize with. Adopting this course, the house allotted to 
them will be in the month of June a blaze of beauty; this we 
can bear witness to, from having seen for some years a collec¬ 
tion thus treated under the care of a friend and neighbour, 
Mr. Edward Banks, of Sholden. 
In order to avoid, on the one hand, the very inartistic notion 
of a Plate consisting of pips, and on the other the confusion 
that full trusses would make, we have given only three pips of 
each variety, but each plant produces a very large head of 
bloom, which would more than by itself occupy the space of 
our Plate. We may add, that the very fine plants exhibited by 
Mr. James, at the Crystal Palace, were grown from seed of a 
similar character to those figured by us. 
