tel over the kitchen stove, and keep warm and wet. When well
started move to a cooler place, and in June set out in the garden.
The old double variety runs up a stem six or seven feet high, and
produces very fragrant flowers. Now there is a dwarf sort called
pearl; the bulbs of this are much smaller but the flowers are equally
as good.
Fancy Fern-Pans. — With but little pains the fancy fern-pans, or
" Boston ferneries " as they are called by florists, can be filled. These
will g-row and remain fresh for months if well watered. If the
woods are visited on an open winter's day a variety of pretty mosses
and ferns may be gathered. A basket should be taken in which to
place rock moss, wood moss, and swamp moss, which will be found
in rock crevices, at the roots of trees and in the swamps. This is
used as the foundation for the fernery. At any tin shop a pan half
an inch deeper than a round tin pie-pan can be made. In this mix
the several kinds of mosses. The prettiest collection to gather is
graceful branches of pines, pitcher plants, snake roots, wintergreen,
fungus, wood berries, lycopodium, wild cranberries, acorns, pterris,
linum, and ferns of any kind. Arrange them tastefully in the moss,
plunging the roots and stems well into it. The fernery should be
soaked with water morning and night. The water should be well
drained off by tipping the pan. If these ferneries are placed on the
round gilded baskets so popular this season, they make a charming
and economical centre-piece for the dinner-table.
Fuchsias are propagated by cuttings taken from the young wood
in early spring, rooted in damp sand. As soon as roots are formed
they are potted in very rich earth, for they are voracious feeders. In
a very few weeks the pots will be full of roots, when the plants should
be shifted into the next size, and this treatment should be followed as
often as the pots are filled. Quite a large plant can be grown in a
season from a cutting. Fuchsias are very fond of iron in their food,
and some florists give them copperas dissolved in water. Others
use nails put in the earth, and the plants grow more rapidly than
when not so treated.
FLORICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE. 279
A fuchsia, if left to its own accord, will generally make a strag-
gling growth. They can be trained into perfect shape in this way:
As soon as the cutting has grown about eight inches in height, the top
is cut out, which induces the plant to throw out side branches. These
again are kept shortened in such a manner that the plant becomes
bushy at the base and runs to a point at the top. If this course is
regularly pursued a most symmetrical plant will be the result.
Rotted Sods are made by cutting turf-grass with the soil attached
to the roots — in the spring time. These sods, or turfs as sometimes
called, are then piled up one on top of another in piles and left to
decompose. If soap-suds be carried from the wash-tub and thrown
on the pile the potash in the suds will go to make the compost still
richer. Many florists have soil on hand so prepared that it is kept
many years.
Page 181
Presented as published in 1883. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
AI-modernized reading of the original text
tel over the kitchen stove, and keep warm and wet. When well started move to a cooler place, and in June set out in the garden. The old double variety runs up a stem six or seven feet high, and produces very fragrant flowers. Now there is a dwarf sort called pearl; the bulbs of this are much smaller but the flowers are equally as good.
Fancy Fern-Pans. — With but little pains the fancy fern-pans, or " Boston ferneries " as they are called by florists, can be filled. These will grow and remain fresh for months if well watered. If the woods are visited on an open winter's day a variety of pretty mosses and ferns may be gathered. A basket should be taken in which to place rock moss, wood moss, and swamp moss, which will be found in rock crevices, at the roots of trees and in the swamps. This is used as the foundation for the fernery. At any tin shop a pan half an inch deeper than a round tin pie-pan can be made. In this mix the several kinds of mosses. The prettiest collection to gather is graceful branches of pines, pitcher plants, snake roots, wintergreen, fungus, wood berries, lycopodium, wild cranberries, acorns, pterris, linum, and ferns of any kind. Arrange them tastefully in the moss, plunging the roots and stems well into it. The fernery should be soaked with water morning and night. The water should be well drained off by tipping the pan. If these ferneries are placed on the round gilded baskets so popular this season, they make a charming and economical centre-piece for the dinner-table.
Fuchsias are propagated by cuttings taken from the young wood in early spring, rooted in damp sand. As soon as roots are formed they are potted in very rich earth, for they are voracious feeders. In a very few weeks the pots will be full of roots, when the plants should be shifted into the next size, and this treatment should be followed as often as the pots are filled. Quite a large plant can be grown in a season from a cutting. Fuchsias are very fond of iron in their food, and some florists give them copperas dissolved in water. Others use nails put in the earth, and the plants grow more rapidly than when not so treated.
A fuchsia, if left to its own accord, will generally make a straggling growth. They can be trained into perfect shape in this way: As soon as the cutting has grown about eight inches in height, the top is cut out, which induces the plant to throw out side branches. These again are kept shortened in such a manner that the plant becomes bushy at the base and runs to a point at the top. If this course is regularly pursued a most symmetrical plant will be the result.
Rotted Sods are made by cutting turf-grass with the soil attached to the roots — in the spring time. These sods, or turfs as sometimes called, are then piled up one on top of another in piles and left to decompose. If soap-suds be carried from the wash-tub and thrown on the pile the potash in the suds will go to make the compost still richer. Many florists have soil on hand so prepared that it is kept many years.