November 27. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
129 
base, and a small portion of wood attached to it, will 
make a plant the same season. Fill a pot five-and-a- 
half inches wide, or less, according to the number of 
cuttings, with a mixture of loam, and peat, and sand; 
; leave a little space for a layer of sand on the surface, 
give a little water to settle it, and then proceed to make 
1 the cuttings. No great skill is required in this opera- 
| tion. The only point to attend to is not to make the 
cuttings too large or long; short young shoots, with 
two leaves on the top, and a joint below to insert in the 
sand, are quite large enough. Trim off the bottom 
leaves, and finish with a clean horizontal cut just under 
the joint. Plant them with the leaves pointing inwards, 
give a little more water to settle the sand close to the 
cuttings, and then place them under a hand-light in 
j heat in the propagating-house, or even in a cucumber 
I frame without any glass, excepting the frame-light over 
, them. Shade for a time till the cuttings will bear the 
light, and as soon as they are rooted pot them off into 
small pots, replace them in the frame or under the hand- 
light for a week or two, then inure them to bear the full 
light by gradually reducing the shade. They are then 
ready for the 
Summer Culture. —If the propagating business has 
been successful, the young plants will have filled their 
first pots with roots by the first week in May, and will 
require larger pots. The best compost to grow them in 
to flower, is made of the following ingredients: sound 
fresh turfy loam, one-half; well-decayed leaf-mould, one- 
fourth; and sandy peat, one-fourth; mix these well 
together (but do not sift the mixture) at the potting-time, 
and put it in a place to become moderately dry and 
warm. As soon as it is fit for use, have ready pots two 
sizes larger than the ones they are in, drain them well 
and pot the plants, exposing them as little and as short a 
time as possible to the open air. This is the point of 
time to begin to form them into nice bushy plants. It 
can only be done by severe stopping and tying down the 
lower shoots as they appear. Naturally it is a tall- 
growing straggling plant, but by strict attention to 
stopping and training it may be formed into a handsome 
bush, such as the one above-mentioned. Repot again 
early in July, stop and tie out then for the last time. 
If there is a pit or deep frame on the premises, place the 
plants in it, and give plenty of air, with due supplies of 
water. The flowering shoots will be made from that 
time (July) till September, when, if all has been well- 
managed, the flower-shoots will be appearing from 
the axils of the leaves, and will begin to bloom towards 
the end of that month, and continue in beauty till the end 
of December. 
Winter Culture commences as soon as the bloom is 
over. Cut the plants down then pretty severely, keep 
them moderately dry and cool, and in early spring shake 
them out of the pots, repot, pinch off the tops, and treat 
them the same as the young plants. The second year 
they will make the best plants; after which, as they are 
so easily propagated, it is neither needful nor desirable to 
I keep them. T. Appleby. 
FLORISTS' FLOWERS. 
MR. GLENNY ON FLORISTS’ FLOWERS. 
Without bringing forward the occurrences of the last 
year, we have abundant proofs that our opinions of 
florists’ flowers have lost none of their influence, though 
the floral world has been wooed by numerous invitations 
to submit their novelties to many different tests, and 
this justifies us in continuing to claim for The Cottage 
Gardener the possession of one security for a fair judg¬ 
ment, let who will give it, whether in the notices “ To 
correspondents,” or elsewhere.—It is totally independent 
of every society, and is certainly not in the interest of 
any florist, therefore there is no society’s judgment to 
uphold, and no trader’s interest to consult, while every 
other Horticultural publication is immediately connected 
with a dealer or a society dependent on public patronage. 
For ourselves we shall not say a word, we are as we are, 
and as we have ever been, and we can say that the 
Editor of The Cottage Gardener never even gives a 
hint to warp our judgment, and that ho endeavours to 
make the work an authority. Our floral friends then, 
who are just now in a muddle with two papers, 
may at least come in for an honest opinion upon all that 
concerns the true interests of Horticulture, and use The 
Cottage Gardener for their organ and their advertising 
medium. “ There are more who read The Cottage 
Gardener than are dreamed of in their philosophy.” 
National Florioultural Society. —We have never j 
looked with a very favourable eye upon societies of 
dealers undertaking to inform the public what they 
ought to buy, and what they should reject; and lor the 
very reasons which the societies advance for their 
establishment. We admit the evil their prospectuses 
complain of, viz., the manner in which the amateur publio 
has been victimised, by inducements to buy, at a large 
price, novelties which have proved not worth the room 
they occupy. This has long convinced the public—we 
speak for everybody—that the dealers who have done 
these things—that is to say, who have by their descriptions 
induced j>eople to buy worthless novelties, are either 
unable to judge of the worth of a flower, or wilfully 
defraud their buyers. But the public, when they deal 
with an individual who has, from ignorance or design, 
deceived them, can either decline trusting to his descrip¬ 
tions again, or can make a condition to return what is 
unsatisfactory, or they may universally do what a great 
many have done—have nothing to do with novelties, 
and wait until a flower has established its value, or 
worthlessness; and there was always one security for the 
public,—the character of the men they dealt with. But 
what is the case when dealers join a society? They ; 
get rid of individual responsibility altogether. As a body, 1 
they may pronounce each other’s novelties to be good, 
grant each other certificates of one kind or other, and 
then, instead of a dealer letting out a flower on his in- I 
dividual responsibility, he shields himself behind the 
society’s certificate. 
Now, let us ask dispassionately, and before the 
people are deceived another year, what confidence 
can be placed in the collective judgment of persons 
whose individual recommendation cannot be trusted? 
We have never seen, in our time, so many people, 
who ought to know better, drawn into the net of 
(a dexterous fisherman, truly) one person, and (we say it 
not offensively, it is too serious a matter to excite any 
but a straightforward motive) one so utterly incom¬ 
petent to take a prominent part in whatever appertains 
to the true interests of floriculture. The proceedings of 
the National Society have been wrong all through. 
Members were invited upon the skeleton of rules ; and 
Mr. Arthur Henderson, treasurer; Mr. Foster, president; 
and Mr. Edwards, secretary; were the only three names 
to the paper. This invitation was sent to many hun¬ 
dreds known to be amateurs or dealers, with a certain 
number of blank offices to be filled up. Of course 
persons felt themselves invited to fill office. It was 
even represented to certain dealers that it would be a 
cheap guinea’s worth if it were only to be advertised in 
ten thousand prospectuses. As people distant from each 
other knew nothing of the affair, and could not consult, 
a lot of those who fancied they saw some advantage 
sent up their names. It was no wonder that out of a 
thousand dealers, twenty or thirty should answer the first 
invitation. Of the first twenty-nine, there were nineteen 
dealers. Fourteen dealers and six others were put on 
the committee, and nine dealers and four others were 
