cool, airy, light house, where they can be kept dry, and have a free circulation of air. If they are thick of foliage at housing - time, it should be thinned. It is much better to remove it while in a healthy state, than first to allow it to become unhealthy and decaying, which is generally the case if they are housed without a little thinning. After being housed, they should be carefully preserved from damp overhead; and after the end of October they should not have more water than is sufficient to keep them from drooping; and during damp weather in winter, they sometimes do not require water for weeks at a time. All through winter decaying leaves should be removed as they appear, and occasional fires be made to dry up damp. In this way I usually winter twelve thousand of these Zonale Pelargoniums

with scarcely any loss of plants; and in boxes, such as I have described, they occupy little space, and are easily moved when this is required.

In large establishments, where there is plenty of glass, it is a good plan to put the cuttings at once into pits where there are hot-water pipes, to preserve from frost. In this way neither boxes nor pots need be used, the body of the pit being prepared with 5 or 6 inches of light soil, and the cuttings dibbled in according to their sorts; they may remain undisturbed till spring. In this way less trouble and labour are needed than by any other: few places, however, can so accommodate them, and the next best way is that which I have described, and which is more generally applicable both to small and large quantities.

Some gardeners strike them in the open ground in light sandy soil, and as soon as they are rooted, lift them and pot them, either singly in small pots, or a few together in larger ones. This is a very good method,

but it has the disadvantage of requiring more labour, in the first instance, and more room and attention in watering through the winter, than the box method, which is equally as suitable for the amateur, who only requires to strike and winter a few scores in a shelf in his greenhouse; for the boxes can be of any dimensions to suit the position in which they are to be wintered.

Late Autumn Propagation.-When circumstances occur that prevent the propagation of the required number of Pelargoniums at so early a period as I have recommended as the best time, and when the propagation cannot be completed till later in autumn, different treatment is required to be successful. When later than the middle of September, it is best, in most localities, to put them under glass as soon as they are put in the cuttingboxes. A light, airy, dry house or pit, avoiding a cold, damp bottom, is the best for them at that date. When propagation is delayed till October, they do not root with certainty or success without artificial heat. At this season the cuttings should be selected even larger than I have recommended for early propagation; and 8-inch pots are preferable to boxes for striking in, inasmuch as their depth gives more room for thorough drainage, which is indispensable. Moreover, the air and light play more freely about the cuttings in small round detachments than in larger squares in boxes. This is of importance, because damp is the greatest evil to contend with in late striking. No more water should be given than is just sufficient to keep them from shrivelling; and a close, damp, cold atmosphere must be prevented by fire-heat and air-giving during dull weather, with a temperature of about 60° at night. Cuttings put in up till the end of October do very well. It is necessary to

winter these in a temperature a little warmer than is sufficient for early-struck stock, for striking by fireheat at a duller season renders late ones more tender, and liable to suffer in a cold, damp atmosphere; and, besides this, they require to be kept somewhat more moist at the root than plants with firmer tissues, and on that account more warmth is necessary to guard against damping-off.

Spring Treatment. The middle of February is early enough to begin potting off Zonale Pelargoniums; and the spring treatment required to make fine plants by the middle of May, of such a stock of young plants as is produced by the practice I have described, is very simple, and different from that which is rendered necessary by selecting small cuttings at a later season, and afterwards treating them tenderly. Unless in the case of scarce sorts that I wish to increase by spring propagation, they are never put into heat after being potted off. Not that a little fire-heat, for a fortnight or so after they are potted, would be anything else than favourable to their wellbeing, but that all available space in heat is reserved for the variegated and more tender sorts; and those of which I am now treating grow into fine sturdy plants without it.

About the second week of February preparation for potting should be made by having the necessary number of 3-inch pots clean and in readiness. For such strong healthy cuttings, drainage of any description is not necessary in the case of this size of pots. The soil should consist of two parts loam, one part of wellrotted dung-dry, and sifted through a half-inch sieve -or leaf-mould, and about an eighth part of the whole of sand. The young plants should be removed from the

boxes with as little breakage to their roots as possible. To this end the soil should be rather dry, so that, after the box gets a sudden shake or two, the plants can be pulled out of it with their roots almost entire. In potting, the soil should be pressed firmly into the pots.

In disposing of them after they are potted, my own practice is to remove them to a large cool peach-house, where there is command of heat just sufficient to keep the frost out. It is a very light house, and the floor of it holds 9000 plants in 3-inch pots. Should the weather be dull and damp, watering should be delayed till a few days after they are potted-off. When watered they should get sufficient, through a rather fine rose, to moisten the whole soil. The night temperature, when fire-heat is required in case of frost, ranges about 40°. For the first fortnight or three weeks, the front sashes are kept shut, but abundance of air is admitted at the top. In such a house they get as much light as is possible under glass, and after they begin to root, as much air as can be admitted on all favourable occasions as the opening of the whole top and front sashes allows. By the middle of May the plants under this hardy treatment are strong and stocky, bristling with bloom and bloom-buds, and receive no serious check when removed to the open air.

This treatment cannot, of course, be pursued where such house-room does not exist: if, instead, there be light dry pits, from which frost can be excluded by hot-water pipes, they answer the same end. In the case of those who have only pits or frames to which artificial heat cannot be applied, and where, unfortunately, as is too often the case, the only accommodation for flower-garden plants consists of vineries and peach

houses, the best course to pursue is to pot-off in March, when the advantage can be had of a short time of heat in such houses, after which the plants can be removed to cold pits and frames, where late spring frosts can be excluded by coverings, and where they can be properly hardened off.

Such is the treatment by which fine plants are raised, when early autumn propagation is practised as I have described. But there are many so circumstanced that, though they can find room to winter them in cutting pots or boxes, they cannot, at so important a season as spring, command convenience to enable them to pot each plant singly. Such cases demand special rules. What I would recommend as a good course under such circumstances is, that the cuttings be put in somewhat thinner than I have recommended for those to be pottedoff, and early in February to pinch the points out of each cutting, to cause it to make lateral growth, and to let them remain in their boxes till planting-out time. For treating them in this way, I prefer 8-inch pots to boxes, as a greater proportion of the plants are at the outside of the small round detachments, and they are therefore not so liable to suffer from crowding. Moreover, the extra depth of soil afforded by the pots, as compared with boxes, affords the plants more nourishment, and at planting time they can be shaken out with better roots. Managed thus, they do not flower so early; and in damp cold soils they have a greater tendency to grow to leaf at the expense of flower than when potted off. But in dry soils I have planted them out from the cutting-pots, and, though later in blooming, they ultimately do exceedingly well.

Spring Propagation.-Deficiency of stock, arising from

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