GERANIUM. Geraniums have come to be as indispensable bedding and decorative plants, as they are beautiful in their variety of rich bloom, in the garden and green house. They are now broken up into so many ornamental va rieties, single, semi-double and double, and in the rich variety of coloring of the leaves, or in grate ful odor of some of the scented leaved varieties, that there is now a broad field to choose from. Their ease of cultivation, adaptability to many soils—liking best, however, a rich, rather porous loam —has rendered them universal favorites with the masses, either for summer or winter bloom. At the time of frost they may be taken up, heeled in, in boxes, and kept over winter in a light cellar that does not freeze, and the next spring, after all danger of frost is over, set out in the border, to again bloom through the sum mer. When taken up they should be cut back, fully half the wood,—sometimes more—being cut away. During the winter they should have but little water, only just enough to keep the soil about the roots from becoming +completely dry.
Those intended for winter blooming, should be taken up about the first of August, cut back to within three or four inches of the earth, carefully potted, and watered until they make new wood, and then be removed to the house before frost. A better way, however, is to strike from cuttings, early in the spring, and by pinching back, in duce a stocky growth for winter blooming. The varieties now embrace every variety of shade, from white, through pink, salmon and red, to the deepest purple, and each year brings an endless variety, as candidates for popular favor. In speaking of white geraniums, we may qualify the statement by saying that we have never seen a white that would retain its purity, in the open air in the full glare of the summer sun; but when grown in the conservatory, or in partial shade, they retain their purity of color fairly well.