What a treasure we have in the Cyclamen as a spring-flowering plant! The handsome form of its flowers, the variety of its colours, the beauty of its foliage, and its free flowering, as well as the enduring quality of its flowers, combine to render it one of the most useful spring greenhouse plants we possess. As a house plant, it is in great request, and its flowers continue fresh a long time when gathered. It is a very easy plant to manage, and though we very often see it with long straggling leaves and flowers, this is the result of improper treatment. Formerly it used to be the custom, in growing Cyclamens, to ripen them by withholding water from them nearly if not altogether: this was called "drying them off," and then they were laid away on their sides, under some greenhouse stage or other out-of-the-way place, until the time for starting them came round again. A better and more common-sense system now generally prevails, however, and the plants are benefited accordingly.

Under the old system, we have seen the corms grown to an immense size: at one place in particular we recollect noticing a great many that measured from 6 up to 10 inches in diameter, the larger size being grown in 11 and 12 inch pots. They produced an immense quantity of flowers, but generally small, and not well formed. A great improvement has taken place in the varieties, as well as in the mode of cultivation, some of the newer kinds being exceedingly beautiful. Such good kinds can now be raised from seed, that most growers raise a few in this way annually, and with them replace the older plants, which are now seldom kept longer than three or four years at most. They are about at their best when three years old. Good seed can be had from most of our seedsmen, though some of them make this and kindred subjects a speciality.

Having procured good seed, sow in February, in a well-drained pan, and in a mixture consisting chiefly of leaf-mould and sand: cover with a piece of glass until the young plants appear, when the glass must be removed, and light admitted freely. From their earliest stage they should be placed in the light and near the glass. When the young seedlings have made two leaves, pot them off singly into small pots, using the same mixture, with a little good loam added. It will be an advantage, in regard to moisture, to plunge the pots in a box of sawdust, or something like that, and kept in a growing temperature of about 60°. When they have rooted nicely in these pots, they may get a shift into 4-inch pots, using richer soil, made so by the admixture of well-rotted cow-dung or bone-meal.

They must still be kept in heat, and attended to in the way of water, so that they do not receive any check to their growth. About the beginning of May they may be gradually hardened off by inuring them to a cooler temperature, but still giving sufficient water; and about the middle of June turn them out into a cold frame, plunging the pots - or, what is equally as good, if not better, plant them out into good rich soil, keep them well aired, even removing the lights altogether on good days, but run on again at night, or during heavy rain. They must be potted up again about the middle of September, using 4-inch or 5-inch pots, according to the size of the plants. They must be returned to the frame for a week or two after potting, and shaded slightly from the sun, until they begin to make fresh roots, when they must get plenty of light and air, or transferred to a pit where they can be kept near the glass and well aired. We do not believe at all in the drying-off process; they should always be kept growing.

The treatment during the second and succeeding years will differ but slightly from that already described, and therefore need not be repeated.

Those who have not the command of heated structures, but may be in possession of a greenhouse and a frame or two, may still manage to grow a few Cyclamens by sowing the seed early in June, and place it in a frame, or in the greenhouse, - the young seedlings to be potted off when fit, and transferred to the frame. Only they must not be potted into larger than 3-inch pots, and not planted out, but kept and wintered in this size of pot; and in spring, after they begin to make fresh growth, they may be shifted into larger pots, the after-treatment being also similar to that described above. The only difference between this mode and the other will be, that it will require from eighteen months to two years to get them into flower. They should be wintered in a temperature of about 50°, and kept in a moderate state as regards moisture. J. G., W.