80 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
May 5. 
the plants, however, an airy, and light, instead of a close or 
a slightly shaded position. If any of the plants bloom, let 
them stand in an airy, shady place, and the dowers will be 
longer preserved; and after blooming, keep the plants in a 
warm corner, well syringed and watered, for a month or two 
afterwards—previously removing any old exhausted piece of a 
stem—giving the plants first a slight shade, and by degrees 
more light, until they are exposed to the full action of the 
sunbeams, and then in August remove them out-of-doors to 
the south side of a fence, where you can contrive to keep 
the rain off them, and yet give them every ray of sunshine, 
turning the plants at times, that each part may have an 
equal portion of light; watering and syringing at first, to 
prevent a sudden check from the increased evaporation 
from the stems, owing to sudden full exposure, hut giving 
less and less water by degrees, until by the end of September 
you cease watering altogether, and do not resume it until 
you wish the plants to grow in March or April, with the ex¬ 
ception of sprinkling with the syringe in a sunny day in 
winter, if the stems are getting rather shrivelled. This 
resting by dryness, in unison with full exposure to sunlight 
after wood is made, is the secret of growing these succulents 
successfully, and, so far as our climate will permit, is merely 
an imitation of the circumstances in which the plants 
flourish in their native wilds. If the plants do not bloom— 
as soon as they have recovered their fresh aspect—they 
may he put out-of-doors earlier , such as the middle of 
July ; or they, as well as the others, may be kept in an airy 
part of the greenhouse, and fully exposed to the sun-heat. 
If even then 3iear the wall, where the sun heats upon, it 
will he better. Why we recommend chiefly a fence, such as 
a wall out-of-doors, is, that the heat there is much more 
intense than can ever he diffused through a well-aired green¬ 
house. In most of the beautiful kinds, without a com¬ 
bination of this light and heat, accompanied with partial 
dryness, and then by the removal of the water-pail altogether 
during one season, it is vain to expect them to produce 
flower-buds in the next. A bright autumn is, therefore, of 
great importance to the Cactus grower, and the easiest cul¬ 
tivated of them are beautiful. I have lengthened these 
l remarks, because convinced that every Cactus grower among 
our amateur friends, by thinking them over, and enquiring 
into the groundwork for them, will find themselves in¬ 
sensibly involved in that most delightful study—the climatic 
and local relations of the plants they cultivate; a science, 
which though among us yet in its infancy, will ever 
furnish, if not the identical practice in our climate, at least 
the key for opening up the way to successful culture. I may 
just repeat, that in starting into growth next spring, it 
will be preferable to swell the stems by means of the 
syringe or sponge, instead of first soaking the roots. House 
the plants by the middle of October. 
Geraniums. —• You have not stated what tribes you 
possess — Scarlets, Florist’s Pelargoniums, or Ihe newer 
Fancy kinds. Our remarks will, therefore, be very general, 
merely premising that there is little difficulty in getting 
scarlets and the fancies in bloom by this time, if kept in 
small pots. You were right to shift all your plants, if the 
soil was sour and ill-drained; but let your shifting again 
proceed upon system. A four-inch pot will furnish nice 
early-blooming plants. Next season you will be enabled 
to indulge in specimens for size. Set apart now all the 
forwardest best-looking plants for early blooming, and do 
not shift them any more. If flower-buds are not now 
showing, they will soon do so, after the roots get to the 
sides of the pot. When well knotted with flower-buds, but 
not before, apply manure-water, weak, and about 00° in 
temperature, and you will obtain large heads of bloom. 
Meanwhile, look out a second lot, the next best, but showing 
little inclination for blooming. As soon as the pots are 
getting filled with roots, if the said pots are from three to 
five inches in diameter, shift them into a size a little larger; 
but if already in pots six inches in diameter, and the roots 
getting to the outside of the pots, do not shift at all, but 
remove a little surface soil, top-dress with half-an-inch of 
rotten manure, one year old—cow-dung would do well—and, 
if you do not like its look, sprinkle over with a little road- 
drift, or other soil. Now, both these processes are intended 
to encourage growth, and to discourage flowering; and in 
either case the bloom will come from three weeks to a 
month later than if neither shifted nor stimulated by a cool 
natured manure. Still, there is a third lot—the weakest- 
looking. Well, encourage them to grow, giving a little 
manure-water at times, after the sickly tinge has been ex- i 
changed for robust health ; stir up the soil on the surface 
of the pot, much as a market-gardener would fork among 
his cabbages, only do not hurt the roots. Turn out a plant 
now and then, and when you find the health} - roots are 
getting to the outside of the ball, go over the plants, and 
nip out the points of the young shoots that are at all strong. 
Some may have only one shoot—stop that; some may have 
three equally robust—stop them all; some may have two 
strong and two weak—stop the strong ones, and this ulti¬ 
mately may furnish you with six or eight shoots of equal 
strength. When these stopped shoots have pushed out 
1 others from the axils of the leaves from lialf-an-inch to one 
inch in length, shift the plant then into a larger pot, and 
j thus you will have another succession of blooming plants ; 
I so that from Geraniums alone, and this persevering atten¬ 
tion, you may have bloom in your house, if kept cool and 
airy, from the middle of May to the middle of September. 
Guttings of Geraniums, taken oft' now, and inserted in 
pots in a shady part of the house, potted and grown on, but 
not stopped, will flower late in autumn. Those that bloom 
first (supposing your stock are chiefly Felargoniums) will 
be ready to come out of the house in July, at the farthest. 
Place them, at first, in a shady place, so that no great check 
be given them. In a few days remove them to an open 
position, full in the sun. Water as usual at first, but cur- J 
tail by degrees, so that the soil may get dryish, as this, with 
an unshaded sun, will ripen and harden'the stems. When 
these are well browned, cut them down to within one or two 
inches of their base. If, notwithstanding this ripening, the 
stumps should be inclined to bleed, daub over the wounds 
with a mixture of charcoal dust and lime. The stems cut 
up into cuttings will strike freely in sandy soil in any open 
border. The cut-down plants should be kept not dry, but 
dryish, and slightly shaded, until they begin to push afresh ; 
and when the shoots are three-quarters-of an-inch in length 
then move them to the potting bench, shake away the soil 
from the roots, prune the straggling roots a little, and repot 
into fresh soil, and into smaller or similar-sized pots. These 
must be kept shaded a little, then fully exposed, and housed 
in good time in October. Do not overburden yourself with 
numbers. Of your small plants, and your room, a dozen of 
each succession may be chosen this year, and half as many 
the year following. If you keep the old plants as just 
mentioned, these will not only prove the foundation of 
handsome specimens, but require in all their stages more 
room to grow them in. Where, however, much bloom is 
required from little space, pots from four to six inches in 
diameter ought to be the general size used. 
Calceolarias. —These, whether shrubby or herbaceous, 
may be now managed upon a similar principle. We shall 
tell how to have the herbaceous ones from sowing before 
long. Only keep this in view—herbaceous ones bloom best 
in spring and autumn, and although shrubby ones will bloom 
all the year round, they soon become sickly in small pots in 
a greenhouse, chiefly because they cannot endure the lleated 
state of the pots at one time, and their coldness at another. 
Hence the comparative freedom from alternations in mois¬ 
ture and dryness, heats and colds, is the reason why shrubby 
Calceolarias succeed so well when planted in the flower- 
borders in summer. Herbaceous kinds do little good out- 
of-doors in summer, because their large flowers become the 
sport of every blast. If you resolve upon keeping some | 
in-doors, whether shrubby or herbaceous, three modes will 
help you to success. 1’iace each pot inside a larger one, j 
and let the space between them, top and bottom, be filled i 
with moss : the sides of the plant pot will thus be kept cool. 
Or you may plunge several pots in moss in a vase, basket, I 
or box. Or you may plant the plants out in earth in such a 
receptacle. And then, lastly, after the end of April, water 
and syringe with the coldest soft water you can procure, and - 
keep the plants in the coolest and airiest part of the house. 
When showing bloom, top-dress with two-year-old rotten 
cowdung, and the bloom will be rendered strong and fine. 
Fuchsias. —To get early bloom do not prune much. Better 
get what you can from the old plants, and start fair for 
another season. See notes on Fuchsias lately. Stubby, 
