Mrs. Hale's Receipts for the Million: Containing Four Thousand Five Hundred and Forty-five Receipts, Facts, Directions, etc. in the Useful, Ornamental, and Domestic Arts
John Stuart Mill · en
734. _September._--The geraniums cut down in July, will now be
pushing forth a number of young shoots; these must be encouraged as
much as possible, by keeping the plants in a sheltered place, and
duly supplying them with moisture. When the shoots have grown two
or three joints, they should be stopped by picking out the points,
in order to render them bushy. The cuttings made at the same period
will now be fit for potting; put each one separately into a small
pot, and treat them as the older plants. Young plants of myrtles, and
indeed all others that are properly rooted, should receive similar
treatment. Cinerarias are among the most useful of spring-flowering
plants, and if a few seedlings can be obtained now, they will make
nice plants, with the treatment recommended for geraniums. Cyclamen,
Guernsey, or Bella-donna lilies, and Lachenalias should be re-potted;
the first and last are very handsome spring-flowering plants, and
the lilies are exceedingly beautiful through October and November;
all of them are of reasonable price, and well worth adding to the
usual stock of window plants. Fill a few pots with fibrous loam,
and sprinkle them over with mignonette, nemophila insignis, and
intermediate stocks; leave the pots in the open air, and thin the
plants to about three or four of the strongest, as soon as they can
be handled. Pot off china primroses, putting one plant into each
three-inch pot. Encourage the chrysanthemums in pots with alternate
applications of manure water, repot the strongest, and allow them all
plenty of room, or the leaves are liable to injury. Set all plants as
they grow out of flower in the sun, to ripen their wood, but do not
let them suffer from drought.
735. _October._--The principal endeavor among this class of plants
must now be directed towards getting them into a state of rest;
water very cautiously, giving air whenever the weather will permit,
and at all times let them enjoy whatever sunshine occurs, and
uninterrupted light. Now that the respiring power of the leaves
becomes lessened, it is most essential that every particle of dust be
carefully removed; the surface of the soil in which they grow should
be occasionally stirred, to keep it clean and porous, and even the
outside of the pots should be washed, for the same end. If it be
necessary to stand the pots in saucers, when the plants are watered,
the waste which runs through should be regularly emptied away, as
much mischief ensues from allowing the roots to remain in the water.