275 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, July 31, 1860. 
size will be large enough for the first summer. When the roots 
are catering freely in the new soil and getting towards the sides 
of the pot, or touching it, the points may be nipped out of these 
side-shoots, and out of the leading shoot too, if not already done. 
Small shoots will proceed from each of these side-shoots; and if 
three are selected on each, and the rest disbudded, each main 
side-shoot will branch something like a deer’s horn, giving you 
altogether nine shoots for your base line for the first year. A 
similar layer may be formed from the stopped central shoot; and 
the skeleton of the plant is thus formed. The number of shoots 
you may vary according to your own fancy. The treatment in thus 
quickly forming compact specimens must be a little different to 
that given to established flowering plants. The atmosphere 
should be closer, moister, and warmer, and yet the plants must 
not be drawn for want of air. Cleanliness, at all times essential, 
must be extra attended to. Slight syriugings after hot days in 
the afternoon will assist them; but care must be taken that no 
drops of water rest on the leaves when visited by the sun of the 
following day. If, notwithstanding air-giving early, the leaves 
should bo damp when the sun is entering on the house, shade 
until the leaves are dry. At this time the plants will like a little 
shade in the two or three brightest hours of the day. If all has 
-gone well by the end of August, full sun and plenty of air should 
be given to the plants, and the terminal buds should be nipped out 
of all the shoots. Apoint of a penknife would do this nicely. Plenty 
of air should then be given, every ray of sun that can be ob¬ 
tained, and not a drop more water than will be necessary to keep 
the plants from flagging. Hardening or ripening the shoots is 
now the chief concern. By the middle of September the plants 
would be better in a pit out of doors, fully exposed to the sun, 
but with glass to guard against rains, &c. These plants should 
bo housed by the middle of October, and kept warmer than older : 
plants over the winter—say from 45° to 50°. During the whole of 
their growth, whenever a single green fly appears, smoke directly, 
and if you syringe at all let it be on such a day as you may hope 
the plants will dry quickly. From these stopped shoots young 
shoots will come from almost every leafstalk, and thinning may 
be required, and also stopping, if one or several of these young 
shoots are much stronger than the rest on the same plant. This 
regulating will enable you to have a symmetrical head of young 1 
shoots producing their succession of trusses of bloom. Such 
plants will bloom well in the 32-pots, if assisted after growing 
freely and knotting for bloom, with manure water; but the plants 
will be finer, if a part is shifted into 24-pots in January, and a 
lot more put into 16-pots in February. The 32’s would bloom 
early in May ; the 24’s in June; the 16’s in July, and so on. 
From that time we treat them as established plants, but pre¬ 
viously to saying something on that subject, I would allude to 
the general 
Arrangement of the Plants in Houses. —At all times, 
and especially when young, if the plants are grown in pits they 
should be within a few inches of the glass, in order that with air 
and light combined, the plants should not be drawn up weakly. 
When grown in span-roofed houses, or even in lean-to-roofed 
houses with plenty of front light, and if the plants are frequently 
turned, they may be kept as sturdy at the distance of a yard or 
more from the glass, as if they were only a few inches, provided 
the glass is bright and clean, and no climbers or other plants 
stand between direct light and the Geraniums. At all times, 
but especially in winter and spring, we prefer choice Geraniums 
to stand on wood, or each pot to be elevated on another pot in¬ 
verted. When such plants stand upon a bed of earth, of ashes, 
or of sand, the moist exhalations are apt to rise and settle upon 
and injure the leaves. I have known cases where the spot was 
pretty well triumphant, until sand platforms were changed for 
wooden shelves, with a free circulation of air all round, beneath 
as well as above the plants. At all stages of growth, whether 
small or large, crowding is their abhorrence. The placing of the 
plants when in bloom we leave to the taste of our readers, 
believing that those who grow the plants have the best right to 
please themselves. 
Having cleared the way by showing how specimens are to be 
quickly made, we now refer to established plants of two or three 
years of age; and as August will be entered upon before this 
meets the light, we will first describe the 
Summer, or rather the Autumn Treatment of such 
Plants. — As soon as the plants fade and get unsightly, remove 
them from the house to an open, sheltered place out of doors, 
where they can have every possible ray of sunlight. Never mind 
though most of the leaves get brown and curled, and fall, if there 
is one or two green at the points of the shoots sufficient to keep 
the stems plump whilst the sun is hardening and ripening them. 
In such a position the weather must be very dry indeed, if much 
watering is needed. A slight syringe among the stems, when the 
weather is very hot and dry, is better than giving much water at 
the roots. When it is necessary to moisten the pots a little, I 
prefer pouring the water between them on the ground on which 
they stand, instead of pouring it into the pot. Such a hot, dry 
period is just the very thing for the plants at that time. They 
will bo more injured from wet than dryness. If heavy showers 
come suddenly, turn the pots over on their sides, and set them 
up again when dry, sunny weather returns. If the weather 
should be continuously wet, endeavour to place the plants where, 
by means of glass, the wet may be thrown past them, and yet 
there may be a free circulation of air, and the chance of catching 
every ray of sunlight. The more the shoots are like Oak shoot3 
in hardiness, the better will the plants and cuttincs from them 
thrive. 
Pruning .—After fourteen or twenty days of this ripening 
process, or more if convenient, the plants may be pruned. Two 
things are to be kept in mind—First. That upon this pruning 
the form of your plant next season depends ; and, second, that 
from every bud or joint you leave of the current season’s well- 
ripened shoots, you may expect a flowering-shoot the following 
season. Hence, if you wish to fill up a deficiency, you must 
leave a suitable shoot for a third or more of its length, to be 
fixed in the desired position. If you wish your plant of next 
year to be bushier and considerably larger, then cut so as to leave 
three or four buds to a shoot. If you wish to continue it in the 
same sized pot, and the plant to be much the same in size the 
next year, as in this, then you must prune freely down, so as to 
leave one or two buds as a sort of spur at the base of the shoots. 
It will thus be seen, that if little training had previously been 
given to the plant, the cutting-down time is a suitable one for 
giving or correcting the desired outline. The training now 
given, however, cannot be depended on as equal to that given 
earlier. 
After-treatment .—If the plants were benefited in being kept 
dry before pruning, they like it still better afterwards. The plants 
will break all the more healthily if assisted with little but their 
own concentrated juices. Rains, therefore, now should be sedu¬ 
lously avoided. In fact, choice plants are safest under glass, 
with plenty of air around them. If the weather continues dry, 
water the ground on which the plants stand, instead of watering 
the pots. A slight dewing over the stems will also do them good 
in hot weather. Thus treated the buds will break slowly, but 
equally and sturdily, all over the plant. When fairly broken a little 
water may be given, but unless in extreme hot weather, the 
plants absorb nearly enough from the moist ground on which 
the pots stand, until it is time to 
Repot them ..—This I prefer doing at this autumn period, in 
these established pruned-back plants. When the young shoots 
are about half an inch in length, or even less than that, 
after pruning we leave the roots untouched, to help in the 
breaking of the fresh shoots; and these fresh shoots, kept 
afterwards growing, assist the forming of fresh roots. The soil 
being previously procured, sweet and well aerated, and neither 
wet nor dry—that is, when you take a little in your hand and 
squeeze it firmly by closing the fist over it, it will be moist enough 
to retain the the traces of your fingers; but when unclasping 
your fingers you lay it down on the potting-bench, it will be dry 
enough to fall to pieces—and that soil at this potting being chiefly 
sandy loam, with a very little sweet leaf mould, and clean pots 
being also in readiness, and mostly a size smaller than the plants 
are now in, bring the plants to the potting bench and commence 
operations. R. Fish. 
(To he continued.) 
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY’S ELORAL 
COMMITTEE. 
A Meeting of the Floral Committee was held on Thursday 
last, at the Rooms, 8, St. Martin’s Place, Trafalgar Square. 
J. J. Blandy, Esq., Vice-President in the chair. 
Mr. Bragg, of Slough, sent a Seedling sweet-scented-leaved 
Pelargonium, called Madame Czillag. It is an improvement on 
Chandler’s Pelicatum, and received a Certificate of Commenda¬ 
tion as a dwarf, free-blooming variety. 
A fine Park Crimson Candytuft , from Mr. Dunnett, of Ded- 
