EVERY one knows this old green-house favourite. We have described it as the "leafy broom," because some of the brooms are without leaves. True Genistas should have spines; true Spartiums, rushlike, leafless stems; and true Cytisus should have leaves and no spines. There is no more useful plant in cultivation than this for decorative purposes. It is so nearly hardy, that on a dry sandy soil it can bear an average winter even near London. Its near relative, Cytisus alata, is so hardy at Kew, that many specimens, eight to ten feet high, may be found by the pagoda in the Royal Gardens.

As a pot-plant for the amateur's greenhouse it is one of the easiest to manage; any light loamy soil suffices for it, with as much heat as will insure safety against frost. During the summer the plant should be out of doors, and care should be taken to keep it sufficiently supplied with water. It has been our practice to pot the plants in larger pots from year to year, until they become too large to be useful, when they are destroyed. As a matter of course, a stock of young plants is always coming forward, these being raised in the usual way from cuttings. Old plants in large pots need not be re-potted for two or three years, but a little of the top soil should be removed in spring, and its place supplied by rich loam or very much decayed manure.

A matter of some importance is that Cytisus racemosus is one of the best plants for an amateur to cultivate with a view to acquire experience in practical horticulture. Nice young plants may be purchased to begin with, and it will afford agreeable pastime thereafter to propagate and make specimens to any extent commensurate with conveniences and requirements.

The simplest mode of propagating is by seeds, which the plant produces in plenty. When ripe, they should be sown in pans filled with sandy loam, and kept in a shady spot until the plants appear, a very little moisture being sufficient to persuade them to germinate. When the little plants are tall enough to be handled, they should be potted singly in the smallest pots, called "thumbs," in a light sandy compost, and have careful attention, to save them from being scorched by the sun or debilitated by damp. Air and light they should have in plenty, and be kept as nearly hardy as possible. When the pots are quite full of roots (and not before) they should be shifted into the next size, called "sixties," which are three inches in diameter.

As remarked above, the usual mode of propagating this plant is by cuttings. It is waste of time to make cuttings of the old wood. The young shoots, when two inches long, should be taken, if possible, with a heel: that is, the thickened part of the shoot where it springs from the old wood. Two or three of the lower leaves should be removed from each cutting, and then they should be planted rather close together in a pan or pot filled with a mixture of loam one part to sand two parts, and with an inch or so of sand only on the top. Give them a gentle watering from a finerose watering-pot, and place the pan in a frame, and shut it up close. If you must keep it in the greenhouse, a bell-glass should be put over the cuttings.

In managing seeds and cuttings, it is a golden rule to keep them always sufficiently moist, without at any time being injuriously damp. A large proportion of the losses of plants by amateurs are the result of injudicious watering. The plants are distressed by long neglect, and then too much water is given to make amends. Where this carelessness prevails they are as often deprived of air as of water-a scarcely less injurious neglect. Injudicious watering would often prove comparatively harmless were the pots and pans well drained; for when the pots are packed with potsherds at the bottom in a neat manner before the soil is put in, they can endure both dryness and excess of moisture with less harm than when the drainage is deficient. These are matters of great importance in the enjoyment of a garden, and the plant before us is one of the most suitable for a beginner to practise with, because it can endure much without serious detriment to its cheerful beauty.