Page:The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory.djvu/128

120 over a propagating tank, or a frame over a dung-bed. They require to be kept moderately moist, and will bear to be closely confined until they form roots. Never having seen a case of damping-off, though we have struck thousands of cuttings, and in various ways, it does not seem needful to warn the cultivator on this head. However, let air be given moderately after the lapse of a week, and thenceforward increase the supply, so that by the time the pots are filled with roots, the plants will be hard and thrifty. When propagated on a large scale they may be dibbled into wet sand, placed over a tank or dung-bed, but we prefer to pot them singly at first, as it is a decided gain in the end. When the thumbpots are full of roots shift to 60-sized pots, using a compost of peat, leaf, and loam from rotted turfs, equal parts of each, keep them in the greenhouse, or warm pit, water frequently overhead, and at the root; give plenty of air, and keep the plants near the glass. When these pots are full of roots, shift into 6-inch pots, the compost to be strong turfy loam, full of fibre; turfy peat, rotten manure and leaf-mould, equal parts, no sand. For the drainage of these pots we use only one large oyster shell, placed over the hole in the pot, hollow side downwards. The plants are shifted into these pots without breaking the balls of earth formed in the 60's, and are at once placed on a bed of coal ashes, or a hard pavement in a shady place out of doors, or plunged to the rim in a bed of cocoa-nut refuse. They have abundance of water, and before the end of October they have attained to an immense size, and have ripened plenty of hard flowering wood for the next season.

The plants are housed at the end of October. A cold pit suffices for their protection, and they have a little water occasionally, and are kept clean as they lose their leaves. In case of severe weather a little care must be taken to prevent them being severely frosted.

From this point the cultivator may proceed either to force a few at a time, or allow them to bloom naturally as the season advances. The first thing to do is to cut them back to about six eyes from the bottom of each well-placed ripe shoot, removing any weak inside shoots that might crowd the head without improving the plant. Next give them a shift to pots seven and a half inches in diameter, with the same soil as the last, and with a mulch of rotten manure an inch thick on the top. Ordinary greenhouse temperature will set them going