TIIE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, September 13, 1859. 
351 
first week of September. With shade in bright sun, these will 
be rooted and able to bear plenty of air before winter. They 
will keep all the better if they have had no assistance in the way 
of heat, except what the sun gives them. Those who pot their 
cuttings off singly, may commence in the second week of August. 
Eor want of space, I prefer keeping them in the cutting-pots ; 
two rows placed thickly round a four-inch pot, leaving a little 
bit in the centro which a cutting would fill, but which unfilled is 
useful for giving the pot a little drop of water in dull, frosty 
weather, when it would not be advisable to wet the foliage, and 
yet the soil may be found too dry. When it can be done, I 
prefer placing these cuttings at such a distance from the glass, 
that shading is reduced to a minimum, and, therefore, the drain¬ 
ing-out process is prevented. Had I room, I would greatly prefer 
pricking out the cuttings in beds and frames at once, and then 
thinning them out in March and April. As it is, I chiefly use 
these cutting-pots as store-pots for obtaining several successions 
of cuttings in spring, having long found that spring-struck 
plants flourish in every way rather the best. Light sandy soil 
suits them best for the winter. Provided the pots are not too 
full, a dusting over the surface with silver sand and bruised 
charcoal two or three times in winter, will help to keep all 
healthy and nice. In taking off such cuttings I like to be as 
particular as for Anagallises, &e., slipping off the little side- 
shoots that have not shown flower, if such can be got, and from 
one to two inches in length, though sometimes we are forced to 
have them a little longer, and, in consequence, reduce them in 
length. I choose these for two purposes. First, they answer 
better in every way than cuttings made by cutting up the 
flowering-shoots : and, secondly, though more time is required at 
the bed, there is less time required in making, and the beds 
present no trace of having been visited for cuttings. Looking at 
some propagating-sheds in the autumn, you would imagine that 
a donkey load of shoots had been cut from the flower-beds, in 
order to get from these a dozen pots of cuttings. I prefer 
selecting the cuttings at the beds, and leaving the flowering- 
shoots to effect the purposes contemplated, when the plants were 
turned out in May. From these little cuttings we remove gene¬ 
rally fully half the foliage ; and if that at the point is larger than 
is convenient, the leaves there are cut in two with the knife, in 
order that the perspiring surface may not be too much for the 
cutting. Preparing cutting-pots and pricking-in cuttings have 
been so often referred to, that it would be needless to repeat 
directions here. There is one thing, however, which I must not 
forget, as next to essential, with these cuttings, when struck hi 
September. 
If struck earlier I should find the plants getting too large and 
cumbersome before winter. When struck so late the cuttings are 
apt to be affected with thrips and other insects, although it may 
require very sharp eyes to detect them before the cuttings begin 
to grow. In making them, therefore, every half-dozen or so are 
held by the lower end between the thumb and fingers ; and the 
top and all but the fresli-cut base well soused in a flat containing 
a solution of tobacco and sulphur-water, and then laid down and 
allowed to dry before being inserted. They are then sprinkled in 
the usual way: syringed as they need it before rooting, shaded 
when the sun is too powerful for them—and only then—and at 
all times air given at night, unless the weather is too severe ; and 
the young plants, in consequence of the cuttings being dipped, &c., 
hardly ever are affected with thrips, &c., during the winter. 
Calceolarias. —A few plants have died here this season, hut 
only a few ; the most have done well. The best dwarf for a 
small compact bed I have met with is Aurea floribunda. The 
Clumber Yellow was good with me last year, and I saw it very 
vigorous at some other places : but this season it has done worst 
with me, and has numbers of the black leprous patches on the 
leaves—the sure sign that all is not right. I used to grow the 
Kentish Kero in great force here, but now I can make nothing of 
it : for though I get fresh healthy cuttings from a distance, and 
turn them out healthy in ground where they had never been 
before—by tho month of July, if not earlier, these leprous spots 
begin to affect leaves and stem, and no remedy I have tried has 
ever arrested tho evil. Several friends, and my neighbour Mr. 
Snow, continue to keep it in good health, though most of them 
were supplied with cuttings from this place before the plants took 
to such tantrums. As I have said, however, the general stock 
has succeeded very fairly here this season, even though in the hot 
dry weather we could scarcely give them a drop of water. 
My own experience and observation lead me to the conclusion, 
that something of the failure of Calceolarias in summer is owing 
to the plants being too forward at planting-out time, or being in 
bloom when turned out. The plants flourish so well in a cool 
moist atmosphere, provided frost is excluded, that unless they 
are thick enough to shade themselves, they are easily injured by 
dry heat in summer—and especially if in a flowering state when 
turned out either from pots, or, what is better, from beds where 
they enjoyed a little protection in cold weather. Owing to these 
circumstances, it is worse than useless to hurry on the striking of 
these plants early in the autumn—for, letting alone the fact that 
the earlier the cuttings are inserted the longer does it take them 
to emit roots, the later-inserted ones are more compact and 
shorter at the end of the -winter ; and, if kept cool, in spring are 
less likely to be too forward when turned out into beds in April 
and May. When beds consist of one thing, the Calceolarias 
should be among the first things planted, as a few degrees of frost- 
will not in general hurt them, and thus they get good roothold 
before the hot and dry weather sets in. I therefore prefer the 
last week in September and the first three weeks in October for 
inserting the shrubby Calceolaria-cuttings for beds. In choosing 
them I prefer short stubby base or side-shoots, and remove fully 
half of the foliage. I put a portion in pots and moveable boxes : 
but I greatly prefer inserting them at once in cold frames and 
pits, and thinning them out in the spring. The Calceolarias are 
always most healthy and vigorous that never smell fire heat under 
any circumstances. I have frequently in severe weather had such 
plants covered up for three weeks, night and day, and they looked 
far better in March and April than those that, being placed in 
houses where frost was kept out by fire heat, had light given to 
them every day, and most commonly plenty of air too. A dry, 
hot atmosphere in their early stages is so much their abomination, 
that no amount of syringing, or watering, or air-giving will 
counteract such a state of things. Where Verbenas, and even 
Geraniums, would damp off and die, the Calceolaria will be quite 
at home, if the foliage should be dewed for weeks. There 
must, however, be no stagnant water at the roots. Pots, boxes, 
and especially beds in which the cuttings are placed, should be 
well drained. Sandy loam, with a little sweet leaf mould and 
fine charcoal, strike and grow them in the young state to per¬ 
fection. These small cuttings are also dipped in tobacco-water. 
Florists’ Pelargoniums.- —Few of these answer for bedding 
purposes, and even those that do bloom somewhat continuously 
make generally such largo foliage when planted out ever so shallow, 
that the trouble of foliage-picking neutralises considerably other 
advantages. When much is done in that way, it is the best plan 
to pot the plants in spring, if not before, and then plunge the 
pots in the beds. This checks extra-luxuriant growth. All the 
more succulent of these may be planted in the border from July 
to the end of August, and few will fail to make good plants. 
Those who like to avoid the trouble of lifting and potting, and 
boxing again, will place them at once into pots, either singly, if 
there is plenty of room, or as thick (within one inch of each 
other) as they can stand, where room is short. The better 
ripened the shoots are, provided there are buds at the joints, the 
better will such cuttings succeed, and - the less trouble will they 
occasion. When cuttings are making, young gardeners are apt 
to select the points of the shoots, and throw away the leafless, 
better-ripened parts. More than twenty years ago I got a parcel 
of cuttings sent to me that did not possess a single leaf. For all 
the world they just resembled hi appearance a bunch of Currant 
shoots at Christmas. Being somewhat green then, I wished my 
friend had done better by me ; hut he did the very best possible. 
He was considerably more experienced, and he knew that such 
shoots would not be injured by a long coach journey, — as almost 
all cuttings are when sent by the inexperienced. The heating 
they undergo when sent in the usual way, injures or destroys 
their vitality. Well, these cuttings were put in, and, so far beat my 
beautiful, green, nice young shoots, that, for all such Geraniums 
when making cuttings in the autumn, I prefer the well-ripened 
base of a shoot to its more green point; and, for general purposes, 
cut every cutting into two joints—one at the base cut through 
for the bottom, and one left at the top to make the fresh shoot 
and head. In particular cases, just as in the Scarlets, we would 
turn every bud with a bit of the shoot into a cutting. When 
these are not put in before September, I prefer placing them in 
pots at once, and, if possible, putting them under glass in a spent 
Cucumber or other bed, from which all the surface soil has been 
removed to get rid of any insects, and fresh ashes strewed over 
the bed before the pots are placed on it. 
Farcy Geraniums. —Some of these make capital beds, but all 
the weaker-growing sorts should be placed in pots or boxes at 
