May 1. 
COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. 
71 
a sunny spot and on a hard bottom. Water must not 
be withheld, and in hot weather they will require a 
bountiful supply. As the dewy nights of autumn come 
on they will want little. They should receive few 
showers after the first week in October, but be laid on 
their broadsides, and raised again to the sun. If they 
could be so placed, in the beginning of November and 
onwards, as alike to be protected from rains, sun, and 
frosts, they will succeed all the better. When wanted 
very eariy, the plants should be laid down on the 
north side of a wall by the end of October. | 
If previously well-ripened by exposure to the sun, 
this will give them a longer period of rest before 
starting them afresh. Thus treated, and started into 
fresh growth gradually, success will be '"likely to be 
the result. A frame, or pit, with a slight amount of 
bottom-heat, such as an exhausted hotbed would pro¬ 
duce, would answer extremely well. Much bottom-heat 
from fresh fermenting matter will be likely to mar the 
whole affair. I have thus detailed what my own practice ! 
would point to as the causes of failure and success, 
and if some others do the same, there may be something 
like certainty gained as to the forcing of this variety, so 
suitable to the circumstances of many. 
GOLDEN CHAIN GERANIUM. 
Many have got this pretty-leaved variety, so suitable 
for rings and edgings, but they cannot get along with 
it—their stock hardly increasing at all. I acted very 
foolishly with it last autumn. I had tried it several 
times in summer and autumn, in the way of propaga¬ 
tion, and with but little success. Not liking to be beaten, 
I and my young man together tried ever so many plans, 
in August and September, to strike it, and a very little 
room would hold all the plants we got. 1 seldom have 
met with a greater deceiver. You may go, day after day, 1 
and find everything looking bright and hopeful, and you 
get to flattering yourself that you have managed the shy 
thing at last, when some fine morning, ere long, you 
find all your hopes annihilated. I was well aware of 
what Mr. Beaton told us, that it is easiest propagated in 
the spring. The regrets, in my case are, that in our 
numerous plans we docked the plants so much for 
cuttings in autumn, that we could obtain but few cut- I 
tiugs in spriug. These, however, as a whole, have done 
well. We think that even in spring propagating there 
are two little notches. First, that the cuttings, after 
being inserted, should be plunged in a sweet, gentle 
hotbed of about 75°, with a top temperature of from 
55° to 60° ; and secondly, that the cuttings should be 
made by March instead of afterwards. Those we put in 
last have not done quite so well as the early ones. Very 
small young pieces are apt to damp off. Let our trials 
last summer, therefore, operate as a warning. Whether 
in pots, plunged, or rather planted out, in good rich soil, 
encourage growth as much as possible, but touch not a 
shoot in the way of a cutting. Let the plants be housed 
early, before frost, and cut not off nor mutilate a single 
shoot. Keep them just as dry as will prevent them 
flagging in winter; and in sunny days, sprinkle the 
foliage instead of saturating too much the roots. An 
average temperature of 45°, at least, will be necessary. 
This treatment will give you firm, hard shoots, with but 
small amount of foliage. You may shorten all these 
shoots freely in March, or earlier. A few degrees rise 
in temperature will soon cause the old plants to break 
aud grow freely before planting out time. Every two 
or three inches of these shoots cut off will be likely to 
give you a plant, if treated as recommended above. 
Select young shoots formed in spring, without a good 
heel of the older wood, and you run a good chance of 
being disappointed. Had I not tried and tried again 
to get plants in summer and autumn ; had I not been 
unable to say the word No, when cuttings were asked 
from me then; and which I have since learned seldom 
rewarded the labour of carrying them home, aud thus 
stumped in my plants,—I could as easily have struck 
hundreds this spring as tens. To every one, therefore, 
itching to try his striking powers on this plant, and who. 
wished every tit-bit to live—without interfering in the 
doing what he likes with his own—I would merely 
hint that my failures and success unitedly say—make 
your store plants as big as you can before winter, and 
put not a cutting in before spring. Some friends of 
mine recommend placing the cuttings at first in a cool 
position, before the base begins to swell; but I have 
found them do best, when the wood was firm enough, in 
placing them in a fairish bottom-heat at first. I under¬ 
stand that Mr. Fleming has a freer growing variety of 
this Golden Chain, and rather better every way ; and 
if so, it must be a great acquisition for edgings in flower- 
gardens. 
PINK CUP GERANIUM. 
This, in its way, is a beautiful gem. The foliage is 
smaller, thick, and succulent, and more crumpled and 
cupped than Mangle's Variegated. There is no com¬ 
parison in the flowers; those of the Pink Cup are 
larger, firmer, and the plant altogether is of a more 
compact form. There have been various complaints 
respecting want of success with this beautiful gem, both 
as respects propagating and growing. To make a fine 
effect in a bed, it should be planted thick, nine to twelve 
inches apart. It has nothing of the rampant growth of 
Mangles Variegated. Even when planted thickly, two 
things are essential to a fine display ; first, what is 
common to most of our garden flowers, plenty of sun¬ 
shine; and secondly, plenty of moisture. In a wettish 
season it will bloom better than almost any other 
Geranium. In a dry season, the nearer it is to a tauk 
or a pump, the better chance it will have of getting 
what it likes. I have never seen it do better than when 
treated almost as a marsh plant. In propagating some 
of it last autumn, the cuttings were placed in a shady 
place in a cold pit, aud well and regularly supplied 
with water. This spring, cuttings, after being placed in 
well-drained receptacles, were watered every day; nothing 
could have succeeded better. It is next to impossible, in 
these circumstances, to overdo this little thing with 
water. Jf kept moist at the roots in fine sunny weather 
it will present a continuous dense mass of pink flowers, 
relieved with singular crumpled, cupped, and silver- 
edged foliage. If allowed to become very dry, the 
flowers will be thin and scattered. The same amount 
of moisture, in the case of Mangles and Geraniums in 
general, would give you foliage instead of bloom. When 
I used to grow it largely, whenever there were signs of 
hot, dry weather, the beds were well watered, and im¬ 
mediately mulched with dry, riddled, old Mushroom- 
dung, to prevent the moisture evaporating. This little 
fact about the water pail, will, I trust, give this beautiful 
plant a better chance for a place in our flower-gardens. 
PINK IVY-LEAVED GERANIUM. 
“ I grew this last season, after being highly recom¬ 
mended. It gave me a vast amount of trouble to get it, 
and what a miserable affair it turned out,—long, rampant 
shoots, fit to mount a fortress-wall, aud flowers few and 
small. Is this the true Ivy-leaved ?” There are two 
varieties, and no doubt you have got the wrong one. 
The best has good trusses of pink flowers, just not so 
bright as the Pink Cup ; the leaves are larger, and it is 
more incliued to crawl than to mount. It is, however, 
rather compact in its habit, and not nearly so rampant as 
Mangles Variegated. On poorish soil, it makes a 
beautiful pinkish bed of from twelve inches in height. 
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