COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
April 3. 
15 
tlie operation, we will try to describe it. In the first ; 
place, you must procure a good budding-knife, which you ; 
may get at any respectable dealer in cutlery ; then procure, j 
also, some good soft garden-matting; cut into proper lengths, ■ 
that is, as long as will wrap round the stock, often enough to 
cover the entire length of the slit you will have to make in 
the stock. Take with you a small garden pot, three-parts full 
of water; in this keep your mat and your scions, to preserve 
the latter fresh and sappy, and the former soft and moist. 
Have a good whetstone handy also, to keep your knife in 
keen, good order. Then take hold of your stock, and in a 
smooth part of it draw your knife upwards, just deep 
enough to separate the bark from the wood; this will form 
what is called a slit, and should be just about an inch long ; 
then, at the top of the slit, make a cross cut, also down to 
the wood, thus forming a letter T- Then take off a bud 
and a portion of the hark, having previously cut off the leaf, 
leaving a small length of the leaf-stalk; turn the bud over, 
and dexterously remove, by a smart jerk, the wood out of 
it, leaving, however, the wood to the bud itself; then lift up 
the bark on one side of the slit, insert the edge of the bud, 
turn the knife over, lift up the other side, and let the whole 
of the bark and the bud drop into the slit, thrust it down 
to the bottom of the slit with the ivory end of the knife 
resting upon the leaf-stalk; should any part of the bark 
of the bud be above the cross slit, cut it carefully off. 
Then tie it instantly round, and pretty tightly, too, and the 
operation is complete. 
The proper time to plant the Ranunculus is the end of 
February or the beginning of March ; but they will do well 
to the end of the latter month. You are not alone with 
your Roses; many hundreds of the Chinese Hybrids and 
Buorbons are killed round London. The Hybrid Perpetuals 
have suffered the least.] 
PEACHES AND NECTARINES IN POTS UNDER 
GLASS. 
“ I have, in a small hothouse, a few Peaches, Nectarines, 
&c., in pots, which are just beginning to throw out leaves; 
but as yet I can see no bloom, nor the chance of any. How 
should I treat them? The house is kept pretty warm, 
50° being about the regular heat at night, and in the day, 
of course, much higher. They were guaranteed to bear 
fruit this season; so that I shall be disappointed if they 
do not.—F. G.” 
it very much like this, the chief points in the culture of which 
are detailed p. 480. We applied to a friend about G. Plantii, 
but have not received an explicit answer. Probably Mr. 
Appleby will give it his attention. 
Cineraria leaves present a brown appearance when, after 
dull, cold weather, we have bright sunshine, and cold air, and 
light and air are freely admitted. It is generally the result 
of a sudden extreme from cloud to sunshine, and from a moist 
atmosphere to a cold and dry one.] 
INDIAN AZALEAS WEAK AND STRAGGLING.— 
IRON FLUES IN A GREENHOUSE. 
“ I have had several l nr ye plants of Indian Azaleas for 
four years, or more, but have not had a single bloom yet, 
nor will they have any this season. Could you give me a hint 
how they ought to be treated ? As they are of rather 
weakly growth, do you think they would be benefited by 
being cut back? and, also, is there any objection to having 
an iron Hue to pass through a small greenhouse heated by 
hot-water?—A Subscriber.” 
[If your Indian Azaleas are weak and straggling, the best 
plan would be to cut them back pretty freely, and put them 
in a place where, without deluging the roots too much, you 
could keep them in a moist, closish temperature of from 
65° to 75°. If the roots are at all in a fair state, it would 
he best not to meddle with them until fresh shoots had 
broken freely. If some shoots come very strong, stop them 
when two or three inches long to equalise them. Do every¬ 
thing to encourage growth until August, when the plants 
must be gradually exposed to full air and sunshine, which 
will set and ripen the buds, and the plants should be housed 
by the middle of October. The treatment of these plants 
in a healty state has frequently been given, and if these old 
plants do not break freely under the above treatment, they 
had better be discarded, and a fresh commencement made 
with young ones. Few things like a little moist heat when 
commencing to grow after blooming; but the plants must 
be gradually inured afterwards to full sun and plenty of air. 
If your iron fine becomes at all hot, it will consume the 
oxygen in the greenhouse with a vengeance. If the first 
part was covered with sand that would be avoided. We 
would prefer the strong glazed water-pipes mentioned at 
page 478.] 
[Peaches generally open their fruit-buds before their 
wood-buds start much, and, therefore, we fear that you have 
little chance of fruit this year. Let the plants stay where 
they are, exposed to every ray of sun they can get, with an 
average of 50° at night, and 60° to 75° during the day. 
Disbud or remove the young shoots gradually, until at last 
you leave no more than you consider necessary to form the 
head of your plant. Give them plenty of water; manure- 
water several times in a week in bright weather, and send 
the water from the syringe freely over the foliage as the 
summer advances. Give air freely, never omitting fresh air 
even now, unless when very cold. Expose them gradually, 
and by the middle or end of July get the plants out-of-doors. 
Screen a little at first, and then place them full in the sun 
against a south aspected fence; water and syringe as in the 
house. Before the end of autumn you will have every shoot 
supplied with flower, as well as wood-buds; and whenever 
you raise the temperature in which they are placed from 
40° to 50° the buds will swell and open.] 
GLORIOSA PLANTII CULTURE.—CINERARIA 
LEAYES TURNED BROWN. 
“ I am sorry again to trouble you with my questions; but 
Mr. Fish not having yet given me the treatment of the 
Gloriosa Plantii, causes me to do so. I hope you will favour 
mo with it as early as convenient; and likewise the reason 
why my Cineraria leaves are turning brown and crisp round 
their edges.— An Amateur.” 
[We have not grown Gloriosa Plantii; but though it is a 
little different from G. superba, we would be inclined to treat 
ALLAMANDA NERIIFOLIA AND MEDINILLA 
SPECIOSA CULTURE. 
“ Some months since you kindly answered an enquiry as 
to Allamanda verticillata culture, and recommended its being 
cut down to induce it to flower. As the plant I have as A. 
verticillata is entirely different from the other Allamandas in 
its habit, having no climbing propensities, but being a stiff 
shrub, I have thought whether my plant is rightly named, 
and enclose a leaf for your inspection. 
“I have a plant of Medinilla speciosa, which, till last 
December, was a fine plant; from some unknown cause 
it has now lost nearly all its leaves, and some of the stems 
seem decaying. Can you give me a few lines of advice as to 
its culture ? — H.” 
[The leaf w r as very much dried up before we received it. 
We are doubtful if it is an Allamanda at all, the veins 
proceeding more at right angles with the midrib than is 
usual with that genus. It nearly resembles the leaf of 
Allamanda neriifolia; and if so, it must be treated differently 
from the others, as it is a neat, stiffish shrub, that produces 
bloom on the points of the young shoots, and very freely 
too. We have had this plant several times in bloom, in one 
season, just by pruning back as soon as it had done 
flowering, and the young shoots that came on brought the 
bloom on their points, or near them. From every bud well- 
ripened last autumn a shoot will be coming now that will 
bo soon showing its bloom, and by this may soon find 
whether your plant is neriifolia. We suspect your 
Medinilla has been too cold, or there has been an escape of 
gas from the flues or stove. We presume it has been well 
