Page:The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory.djvu/145

Rh available; but the atmosphere must not be moist with steam arising from fermenting materials. Otherwise the fancies require the same treatment as the show varieties, and mav, with advantage, be located at the warmest end of the geranium-house.

are grown in great quantities for Covent Garden Market, but are generally considered by amateurs too troublesome to be worth a place in the private greenhouse. It requires some skill to do them well, but when well done they charm away the gloom of winter, and proclaim the cultivator a master of the art. As regards quality the flowers are not so fine as those of varieties flowering later in the season, but they are produced in greater abundance, and the habit is rather better. It would not be fair to compare the flowers of the two classes, for the early flowering varieties bloom so early with a proper system of management, that they should be out of bloom and removed from the conservatory by the time the later blooming kinds are ready to take their place.

It is best to begin in July with plants a year old. If you must begin with cuttings, secure them early in March, and strike them on bottom-heat, and have the young plants in separate pots in the greenhouse at the beginning of May, when they should be potted into large 60’3 and removed to a cold frame. If this plan is not suitable to your case, secure cuttings in June, and strike them under a hand-glass without heat, and make the most of the short season of growing weather that remains.

About the middle of June, or earlier, if the season is forward, those in the cold frames should be removed to a bed of coal ashes a foot in thickness, in an open sunny spot. A mere sprinkle of ashes will not suffice, for wherever a worm finds entrance, the plant will suffer by it. In the first week of July stop all the young shoots, and before the month is out shift into 48’s or 32’s, and return them to the bed of ashes. In the first week of September the stock should be brought into the greenhouse, be placed close to the glass, and have an abundance of air. Ventilate the greenhouse freely when the plants are first brought indoors in September, to lessen the change as much as possible. In a fortnight afterwards they will begin to feel at home, and, as the weather will be getting colder, less air will be necessary. Air-giving must at all times be regulated by the state of the weather outside. In dull, damp