THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Januaet 10, I860. • 
open aiv two or three nights running, and these plants were ' 
to me the most valuable ot all the plants in the three king- \ 
doins. Most of these best breeders were in their flowering- 
pots six weeks or so before Christmas, and a few of them j 
had to get their last shift at the beginning of February. I 1 
never breed in May from a Geranium that has been potted i 
later than the previous February. 
The meaning of these two ways is to follow natural ways 
as much as possible under the circumstances of my “con¬ 
dition in life,” or rather the unnatural conditions to which 
all our Geraniums are necessarily exposed the year round ; 
to have a plant fully established at the roots at the time ot 
crossing it, or breeding from it, and that establishment at 
the roots to be brought about as naturally as the climate 
will allow. In my little conservatory, the sudden and 
sometimes extraordinarily sudden changes in the winter, tell 
very much for or against my breeders; but a very mild turn 
from a very sharp cold is more injurious to them than a 
sudden severe frost after a run of clear or cloudy mild 
weather. Hence the reasons for my turning out of doors 
some few of my best breeders whenever a day offers the 
opportunity for doing so, and lor leaving them out all night 
when there are no signs of host. But all that care is thought 
to be not so necessary after the pots are quite lull ol the j 
roots, be that in February, in March, or later. 
When the pots get full of healthy roots, under this more 
natural system than that generally pursued with bloomer 
beauties, the plants may be again treated quite the contrary 
to that for flowering plants—that is, plants grown solely j 
for their blossoms. The greatest contrast between two 
plants, or’ two sets of plauts, is when a Pelargonium is 
forced to bloom at this time of the year, and another 
Pelargonium is turned out of doors at night, in order to 
keep it more cool during the time it is making its yearly 
complement of young sucking roots under artiiicial con¬ 
ditions, so that the conditions be as free from force or forc¬ 
ing as possible, and so be the nearest to natural conditions. 
Now, and in all times to come, I hold it to be true to Nature 
and to kindred; or, at any rate, much more natural to do 
bedding plants in winter as I do my breeders than in the 
ways they are more generally managed. 
Of course, I could not turn a hundred, or a thousand, 
plants out of doors of a morning and return them at 
night as I do a dozen or a score of pots, and, of neces¬ 
sity, I do not contemplate that amount of labour; but 
every night that I leave those breeders out of doors, I j 
would he free and fearless in leaving off all the glass 
lights of any frame or pit in which L kept the bedders, 
and unless it were to rain, or the wind to be very high, 
I hold it to be true philosophy, and sustained by prac¬ 
tice, that a full free exposure of a frame full of bedding 
plauts for one whole winter night is, or would he, as good to 
them as the best way of ventilation could be in three entire 
days running. Indeed, so near do the managements for 
bedders and for breeders approach each othPr, that one-half 
of all our bedders might be in their final pots, or potting, 
six weeks before Christmas, and the other half before the 
end of February. Then there would be no shade of dif¬ 
ference in the management of bedders and breeders, and 
the bedding-out system would cause no blank in the flower 
garden at the end of May, for all the plants would be in 
bloom, or just coining into bloom, by the time it was safe to j 
trust them out for good. The worst of it is the expense ; 
and through the cost, the impossibility of finding shelter 
under glass for so many plauts, if each plant had sufficient 
room at the roots to hold on till blooming and planting-out 
time. But that is no reason why the opportunity for treating 
bedders as nearly as possible like the first and fairest 
breeders should not be adopted as much and as often as 
possible when wo have the chance, and that is when we 
have them in frames, or pits, from which the lights can be 
drawn off entirely for whole days in succession, and for 
some nights occasionally. 
There is nothing speculative in this, if you under¬ 
stand my meaning, which is, in the clearest .and shortest 
way I can write, a simple one-light box full of bedding 
stuff. Take the glass or “ light” entirely off that box from 
“ teatime” till bedtime at this season of the year—or say, 
give the plants five hours of night exposure to the free open 
air by taking off the glass entirely, arid it will do them as 
much good as fifty hours of day ventilation, supposing you 
tilted back and front of the glass alike. One half of all the 
new amateurs I ever yet came in contact with were wholly 
wrong in their ideas of ventilation during the winter. But 
I am as free to confess that we gardeners were, in a greater 
proportion, not altogether really ignorant of the fact, but 
numbers of us were quite careless about it. But for the 
last few years my breeders have turned out so valuable, that 
I have found it worth while to turn my utmost attention to 
the very inmost of their ways; and I have tested practices 
with them that I should never think of studying at all 
under the common run of everyday life. 
For bedding plants, therefore, which are free from frost¬ 
bites, and are well established in pots, or are otherwise 
safe at the roots from being planted out of pots in the 
bottom of the pit, no mode of ventilation is one-half so 
good as that of drawing off the glasses entirely for so many 
hours each fine day, or as loug of an evening as it is safe 
from frost, or too much rain, to do so. But when the case 
is one as too many are this winter, when plants have been 
more or less damaged by early frost, and are given to damp 
and moulding, the ventilation is better for them in a cur¬ 
rent by tilting the back and front of the lights in the day¬ 
time, and by back air at night, or as long on in the evening 
as it is thought safe to leave air on. It is a dangerous 
plan, with plants in that condition, to adopt the same plan 
with them in cold pits during the winter which we make 
use of in summer for gaining extra heat during the night— 
that is, by shutting up the glass early in the afternoon of 
fine days, in order to confine and keep the heat received in 
the afternoon to help to keep the pit and plants warmer 
during the night. Nothing is more fatal to injured plants 
than that practice, although, on the face of it, the advan¬ 
tage would seem great. The effect of closing-in afternoon 
heat in cold damp pits or frames in winter is to raise a 
muggy vapour among the plants all night; the very worst 
condition for frost-bitten plants to be in that I can think 
of. Even when the plants are in the best health, and free 
from all damp and decay, it is a most injudicious mode to 
attempt to make use of the afternoon heat by shutting 
up the lights early in the dead of winter; for of all modes 
of inducing growth, or for forcing a new growth, save 
that of bottom heat, this of closing early in the after¬ 
noon is the one to which all kinds of plants will yield 
the readiest, and soft-wooded plants, like our bedding 
stuff, more easily than woody plants. Therefore, if your 
head is not swimming with older notions, which arc diffi¬ 
cult to be got rid of by one advertisement, take to this 
principle, or ancient law of vegetable life, and never shut 
up the glass till dusk over bedding plants to the very end of 
February. From the day you “ house” them in the autumn, 
always make use of full exposure in fine tveather rather 
than ventilating, if your plants are in a fair condition of 
health and roots, and never miss to let them have as much 
of the night air as the state of the weather-glass will in¬ 
dicate to be perfectly safe. Dry and cold is the true prin¬ 
ciple of repose for them ; warm and muggy is the reverse. 
A long confinement under a glass screen, though a cur¬ 
rent of air may, or might pass under it, and over the leaves 
all the time, is certain, in the long run, to make these 
leaves and the young shoots too tender to bear tl»e full sun 
of a fine day in early spring without drooping. Therefore, 
harden them from the very first by as much exposure as 
the weather will permit; and, as I said before, no kind of 
giving air will expose them half so much as taking off the 
glass or screen. Under this sytem you will find that the 
hottest day in March will not affect them so much as the 
mildest day iu January—I mean it wilinotset them growing 
faster. What growth they will make under the exposed 
system, night and day, whenever it is safe, will be lawful 
