62 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
When the repose is over, the buds will begin to swell a little ; 
I then take the plant out of the pot, and shake nearly all the soil 
away from the roots. From a 12-size pot, I have reduced it to a 
32, but this reducing must be regulated according to the state of 
the plant; and, therefore, I leave it to the judgment of the grower. 
When I shake the soil from the roots, I cut them back a little ; 
at that time they will be setting out small fibres, which will soon 
take hold of the new soil. I use one part of light turfy loam, 
and three parts of turfy peat, adding a little silver sand if the peat 
seems deficient in that ingredient, and always securing proper 
drainage to the pot. If it is an old plant that has been cut down 
formerly, I cut it back, leaving three buds on each shoot of last 
year’s wood ; if it is a young plant, that was struck from a cutting 
last year, I leave four or five buds, (that is, only in plants that have 
been struck in the autumn for late flowering ;) but in those plants 
that I strike from the wood which is cut off in the spring, I keep 
stopping the leading shoots throughout the summer, in order to 
have plenty of shoots for specimen plants the following year, and 
those are always the handsomest plants that are so treated. After 
shaking the soil from them, and potting them, I place them in a 
partially shaded place in the stove, keeping them always in a 
humid atmosphere ; if there is not enough of shoots to start away 
at first, I top the strongest, which makes it send out more. I 
allow the shoots to grow upwards till about the end of August, 
when I tie them down to sticks placed round the pot, bending 
them in the form of an umbrella, which makes them send out 
young shoots above the shortest circumference of the bend, caused 
by the partly closing of the sap vessels at that portion, which forces 
the sap into the buds, at the same time it stpps part of the sap 
from going into the point of the shoots, which makes them flower 
sooner. In that method of training, they form beautiful plants, 
with fine spikes of flowers in the months of December, January, and 
February. They are easily propagated by cutting. I strike them 
in a pot well drained, and some peat above, and then some silver 
sand, and place them in a cucumber frame, shading them, and 
giving them water as they require it. 
Alexander Shearer. 
