78 
THE PANSEY. 
has puce-coloured flowers. It is an abundant bloomer, but pro¬ 
duces its flowers in autumn and winter. 
JE. radicans. The subject of our present illustration is also a 
Java plant; it and the preceding five were thence obtained by 
Messrs. Veitch, of Exeter, through their very successful collector, 
Mr. Thomas Lobb. 
THE PANSEY. 
This flower may be regarded as the stepping-stone to flori- 
cultural eminence, as in its cultivation the embryo florist usually 
expresses his earliest attachment to the pursuit, and receives the 
first lesson in an art which unfolds greater sources of intellectual 
pleasure the further we extend our researches. An idea has become 
rather prevalent, that the Pansey or Heartsease requires little or 
no management, in fact, is beneath the attention of any who 
would really deserve the credit attached to their productions; — 
an hypothesis altogether without foundation, as the attempt to 
produce only a dozen perfect blooms will prove to all, on the first 
trial; and it is the unexpected rising of difficulties where all was 
presupposed to be mere matter of course, that I imagine has 
caused the withdrawal of such cultivators as only felt a luke¬ 
warm interest in the matter. There must be unremitting attention, 
and no small measure of practical tact, to ensure success ; for 
though of the freest disposition to grow in genial weather, and 
ever ready to bloom, the plants are subject to injury from a variety 
of causes in winter, and the finest sorts have an inherent and 
unconquerable inclination to degenerate, to prevent or correct 
which forms the sum of their management. The method I adopt 
is as follows: 
Beginning with the season at the present date: let healthy 
young plants be procured, of the autumn-striking if possible, as 
spring plants are scarcely strong enough to be depended on till 
next month : let them be planted out in beds composed, as nearly 
as possible, of thoroughly rotted turfy loam, and about a third 
the quantity of old hot-bed manure and sharp sand—if the former 
is reduced nearly to a state of earth, it will be the better; by no 
