180 
3?fe fuDikes’ Sterol sBoXuiet hjbJ Sictortel Home 
lomirarftnri. 
POINSETTIA PULCHEERIMA. 
I noticed in a number of the Ladies’ Floral Cabi¬ 
net an inquiry in regard to the house culture of 
Poinsettia Pulcherrima. Having cultivated it success¬ 
fully without the aid of green or hothouse, I thought 
the statement might encourage other ladies who are 
desirous to have these gorgeous floral ornaments. 
The chief difficulty I had was in raising slips. I 
first tried them in a small conservatory without a glass 
roof. Out of the cuttings of several years I raised 
but one. Then a compassionate gar¬ 
dener told me to put them into sand 
and to water them a little or not at 
all. I tried this plan, setting the pot 
of slips in the shade of a honey¬ 
suckle, with an eastern exposure. 
They rooted and grew thriftily. 
I have since tried a better plan, 
and one entirely successful for ama¬ 
teurs. Set them out into a half shady, 
well-drained garden bed. Out of two 
sets of slips all grew that were plant¬ 
ed in this way. They should be taken 
up very carefully before there is the 
least danger of frost, lest they lose 
their leaves and droop and die. While 
young their roots should be disturbed 
as seldom as possible; when older 
they are not injured by having the 
earth all shaken from the roots. In 
order that the roots need not be dis¬ 
turbed when first started, the slips 
might be put into pots and then be set 
into the ground until they are rooted ; 
they can then be taken up without 
disturbance. After being well estab¬ 
lished they need re-potting as often as 
the roots become crowded, until they 
reach ten or twelve-inch pots. The 
earth required for them is one part 
loam, one of leaf mould, one of fine 
sand, and one of well-rotted manure. 
Be sure to have the pots well 
drained by an inch or two of broken 
pots, oyster shells, or charcoal. When 
they are in large pots they may in 
the early part of summer be top- 
dressed, or taken out and the earth 
shaken from the outside to the depth 
of two or three inches. Put two or 
three inches of a fresh mixture in the 
bottom of the, pot, set in the plant, 
and fill in the earth evenly at the sides, 
punching it down with a flat stick, so 
that no open space be left about the 
roots, as is often the case when the pot is merely 
shaken to settle the earth. 
Water young and old plants very freely while grow¬ 
ing and blooming, and they will bloom for several 
months in succession. After they are through 
blooming let them rest for several weeks, and keep 
dry before trimming ; then cut each branch down to 
the second joint of the last year’s growth. The slips 
may be kept in moist sand until the weather is warm 
enough to set them out in the garden. 
These plants can be grown to the size of a tree if 
sufficient room for the roots be given. A lady friend 
has some from five to fifteen feet in height. If well 
cultivated the bracts will reach eighteen or twenty 
inches in diameter, having grown that size on a plant 
cultivated by myself. 
The rooms in which these Poinsettias were grown 
were ordinary sitting-rooms, heated with anthracite 
coal. In one instance the windows were large, reach¬ 
ing to the floor, the exposure north-east, the heat from 
a furnace. The leaves of the plant were showered 
over once a week. In the other the window faced 
south, the room most of the time being too cool to sit 
in. When the plant came into bloom it was removed 
to a warm sitting-room, where it opened large-sized 
bracts, being in its" second year from the slip. I was 
told by the lady who owned the tree Poinsettias that 
they could be kept in the cellar during the winter and 
bloomed out of doors in summer. One of the plants 
above described was allowed to grow to the light with¬ 
out turning. It half filled the large window, and ex¬ 
cited the wonder and admiration of all the passers-by. 
In the sunlight the brilliancy of the gorgeous scarlet 
bracts was dazzling. 
The growth should be pinched out about the middle 
of August. Anna G-riscom. 
ANOTHER PLEA FOR SEEDLING VER¬ 
BENAS. 
I wish I could send you some of our lovely Seedling 
Verbenas. While every other flower is dead from the 
early frost, our Verbenas are as bright and as full of 
bloom as in midsummer, and the colors richer by far. 
We had about seventy plants, raised from seed saved 
from our plants last summer, which were themselves 
seedlings from a dozen varieties bought the year before 
of a florist in Iowa; so you see they are altogether 
Iowan. « 
We have all the original colors, and many new 
ones, ranging from the softest peach bloom to the 
deepest crimson; from the faintest lavender to the 
darkest velvety purple; all colors of seifs and with 
white eyes; dazzling scarlets; lovely rose, with 
crimson centres; crimson, with almost black eye; 
rich maroons. 
One pure snowy white has twenty-three full clus¬ 
ters of bloom ; another has thirty-two 
clusters. This last is exquisite ; the 
centre is deep maroon, which then 
shades out to the lightest pink. 
Some of them are very large. I 
counted forty florets in one cluster, 
each floret measuring one inch in di¬ 
ameter. Besides the size and rich¬ 
ness of color, they are deliciously 
sweet, a small bouquet perfuming a 
large room. 
I recently cut one hundred clusters 
of Verbenas, of all shades, to send to 
some sick friends. After cutting these 
I have a bouquet for the parlor, and 
the plants are still full of buds and 
flowers. 
After the last two years’ experience 
we shall always advocate seedlings; 
they are so luxuriant, and there is also 
the pleasure of watching for some new 
variety. 
And now (in the way of digression), 
I think the lady who inaugurated the 
war of the “ Madeira Vine Leaf” has 
conferred quite a benefit upon the 
many readers of our loved Cabinet ; 
for if she had not published the size of 
her leaf, we should not have known 
that ours was anything uncom¬ 
mon. 
Ours measured over eighteen inches 
in ordinary garden soil. 
It is rather late in the day to pub¬ 
lish this, since it has heen so much 
eclipsed in Hlinois and Texas; but 
assuming that “Medora” is Eastern, 
it is gratifying to beat, if it is ever so 
little. 
Perhaps she can beat our seedlings; 
if so, we hope she will tell us, for the 
rivalry will be an incentive to future 
efforts. 
I should like to describe our house 
plants, but fear to overtax the editor’s 
A Devotee. 
patience. 
Water Lilies, etc —Aunt Carrie asks the name 01 
a lily. I think it must be Funkia Japonica, or August 
Day Lily. If Paul De Verges will forward me ad¬ 
dress and stamps, I will send him roots of the Water 
Lily (Nyinphsea Odorata); they can be sent during 
November or December. I raised the Lilies in the 
yard in a barrel set in the ground, this summer. They 
were planted too thick, and did not blossom well. 
What variety of “ old-fashioned white rose ” does 
B. II. Blake want ? I have one variety that is as 
handsome as any Tea Rose, and is full and perfect. 
Delmar, Del. Georgia B. Carver. 
