251. Gardening Operations

In-door preparations for future operations must be made, as in this month there are only five hours a day available for out-door work, unless the season be unusually mild. Mat over tulip beds, begin to force roses. Place pots over seakale and surround them with manure, litter, dried leaves, &c. Plant dried roots of border flowers in mild weather. Take strawberries in pots into the greenhouse. Take cuttings of chrysanthemums and strike them under glass. Prune and plant gooseberry, currant, fruit, and deciduous trees and shrubs. Cucumbers and melons to be sown in the hot-bed. Apply manures to the soil.

252. February.—Flowers of the Month.

Snowdrop, Violet, Alyssum, Primrose.

253. Gardening Operations

Transplant pinks, carnations, sweet-williams, candy-tuft, campanulas, &c. Sow sweet and garden peas and lettuces, for succession of crops, covering the ground with straw, &c. Sow also Savoys, leeks, and cabbages. Prune and nail fruit trees, and towards the end of the month plant stocks for next year's grafting; also cuttings of poplar, elder, willow trees, for ornamental shrubbery. Sow fruit and forest tree seeds.

254. March.—Flowers of the Month