PRINCIPLES OF FLORICULTURE. 
175 
by diminishing that stimulus of the plant which produces shoots 
and stems ; but care must be taken not to starve the plant or to 
check its growth too suddenly; for in either of these cases the 
plant gets sickly, and may never recover its vigour, or it may die in 
the effort of flowering ; for the young practitioner must under¬ 
stand, that though the action by which it is brought about is very 
obscure, flowering is the severest effort to which a plant can be 
subjected. But, independently of this, there is always an object 
not quite natural to the plant; and this object varies consi¬ 
derably, and the treatment must be varied in order to accomplish 
it. One modification of it is to get an abundance of flowers ; a 
second is, to obtain an increase of the number of flowers in pro¬ 
portion to the size of the plant ; and a third is, to obtain flowers 
differing in colour, or otherwise in appearance, from those which 
the plant naturally produces. To obtain an abundant flowering, 
the soil must not be too rich, nor should too much moisture or 
too much shelter be given. We see this in great part when we 
examine the natural vegetation of different soils and situations ; 
for the strong and sheltered lands, though they are favourable to 
the strong growth of plants as individuals, are never so flowery 
as the drier lands, to which the atmosphere has better access. 
It is true that both the sun and the air are apt to injure the 
petals of tender flowers ; but this in all probability, more espe¬ 
cially in as far as the sunbeams are concerned, may accelerate the 
process of maturing the pollen and the anthers, with which the 
petals are always in some way connected. 
Another object is the obtaining of larger, handsomer, and more 
double flowers than the plant produces in a state of nature, and 
with all its systems working equally. The first of these is, in 
part, effected by lessening the quantity of wood, especially of that 
which is either past flowering, or would shoot again along with the 
flowers, and so impoverish them ; and it is also in so far obtained 
by as stimulating a soil as the plant will bear, and due attention 
to watering and cleanliness. The second,—that of obtaining 
flowers nearly double, that is, with more petals,—is one of which 
the principles are not a little obscure. We know that the parts 
of fructification, more especially the fertilizing ones, are those 
which are converted into petals, in like manner as the fertilizable 
part of an abortive flower is sometimes converted into a, shoot, 
and a shoot which occasionally produces a flower in the course of 
