Page:The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory.djvu/172

162 drainage, and a mixture of equal parts peat and sand and half an inch of pure sand on the top. Put into each pot as many cuttings as it will hold and place the pots under hand-glasses in a temperature of 50°, and from the first air them regularly, and after every airing wipe the hand-lights to remove the condensed moisture from the glass. It is a common practice to cover the cutting pots with bell-glasses, but it is injurious, and thousands of cuttings are lost annually from this cause alone. Watering is very important: you must give sufficient to keep the sand and soil always moderately moist, never wet and never dry.

As soon as the cuttings are rooted pot them in smallest 60-size in a mixture of fibry peat and one fourth sand. Pot them firmly and with the greatest care, and immediately shut them up in a cold frame for a fortnight, after which time ventilate them cautiously, and in the course of a fortnight put them out on a bed of coal-ashes and pinch out the point of every one to induce a bushy habit of growth. In September take them to the greenhouse, keep them close to the glass and freely ventilated, and during the winter use no more artificial heat than is necessary to exclude frost or to dispel damp, and permit of air-giving in wet weather. In April shift into five-inch pots and put them into a cold frame. In a mouth from the shifting put them out on a bed of coal-ashes. Do not stop any of them except for some special reason, for the natural growth is most to be desired. When the growing points of the shoots are nipped out once or twice during the second year’s growth, the result is a confusion of the shoots and it is impossible to see the flowers to advantage. When no stoppage is practised, a plant of E. hyemalis in a six-inch pot will produce from twenty to thirty strong shoots eighteen inches in height, each of which will form perfect pyramids of bloom at the proper season. It is most injurious to shade the plants during the summer; they ought to be fully exposed to the sun at all times.

In making a selection of heaths, the resident in or near a town should give preference to the free-growing showy sorts, as they suffer but little through exposure to atmospheric impurities, but the slow-growing or very hard-wooded sorts require a pure air and are some degrees more difficult to manage. To ensure success, we must begin with a cool, light, airy span-roof house, or a good pit with piping enough to keep