Page:The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory.djvu/160

150 freely, provided they are taken when the wood is moderately firm, and the cuttings covered with a bell-glass. It is necessary to practise a judicious system of stopping when the plants are young, to ensure the production of bushy well-furnished specimens. They are exceedingly impatient of artificial heat.

.The flowers of the greenhouse Daphnes are valued for bouquets during the winter season, for they are delightfully fragrant. Increasing the stock by cuttings is attended with such uncertainty that they are usually grafted upon D. laureola, which can be raised from seed. The seed is a long time in vegetating, and, considering the trouble attached to the grafting, amateurs will do well to procure healthy plants of a small size from a nursery. An open position out of doors during the summer season will benefit them, and if there is a probability of the flowers being required before the usual time, they may be placed in the early part of the winter in a temperature of about 55°; but, as they flower early in the new year, no forcing whatever is, as a rule, required.

.A few of the species belonging to this genus are very interesting and attractive. They require fibrous peat to which a liberal proportion of silver sand has been added. After they have done flowering prune them back, and when they have fairly started into growth again place them in the open air. They must not be exposed to continuous rains, for if the soil remains for any length of time in a saturated state the young roots will perish.

.The pretty white-flowered Dracophyllum gracile is as useful for conservatory decoration as it is valuable in competitive groups. It should be potted in peat chopped up rather fine and mixed with a liberal quantity of silver sand. Specimens trained as bushes are more pleasing and effective than those trained to wire trellises. To produce these, stop the young shoots twice during the first two years after they are potted off singly. Afterwards the growth must be trained out nicely with the aid of neat stakes. As the flowers fade prune back the growth of the preceding season, and when the young shoots are an inch or so in length place the plants out of doors. They must not remain out of doors late in the autumn. It is advisable to keep them indoors altogether