EXHIBITIONS have so greatly influenced floricultural tastes that we may be forgiven if for a moment we permit this flower to stir old memories. In the course of the fifty or sixty years that it has been in cultivation it has passed through all the phases incident to a proper florists' flower, and happily it remains for such as can enjoy it, though it has fallen from its high estate. This may, to the reader who is uninitiated in the floral mysteries, appear to be a dreadful fate for such a beautiful thing. But indeed it is not. When the flower was rising into fame the florists gave names to their choice varieties, and these were propagated by divisions and cuttings, to maintain them in the full integrity of their floral characters. But the fashion for named herbaceous calceolarias has passed away, and therefore they are no longer named, and no longer grown from cuttings, and there is no care whatever taken to keep any plant beyond the season of its flowering. When groups of well-grown calceolarias are now staged at exhibitions, the spectators are delighted with their variety and richness of colouring, their massive heads of bloom, and the fresh and abundant healthy green foliage. If the plants are lovely to look at, they are surely none the less acceptable because they are grown from seeds as annuals or biennials.

Some special care is requisite in growing these splendid calceolarias in a creditable manner. The easiest, and, generally speaking, the best method, is to raise them from seed, which should be sown in July, in pans containing a mixture of equal parts of sifted loam, leaf-mould, peat, and sharp sand. The soil should be moderately moist, and the seed should be thinly scattered, and covered with the merest dusting of fine peat. A cold frame is the proper place for the seed-pans until the plants appear. Until they appear, shade the pans by laying sheets of paper over them, or by laying a mat over the light that covers the frame. The young plants must have light and air and regular supplies of moisture, but no excess of any of these aids to growth, for strong sun, strong wind, and a wet soil are equally inimical to their welfare. As they grow, prick them into other pans to give them more room. Nurse them in the pans until large enough to be put into small pots singly, using the same soil as before. You will thus have secured a nice stock of sturdy plants during the best growing weather of the first season.

To raise them from cuttings, we must wait until young shoots arise from the roots of plants that have flowered. These must be removed with care, and potted singly, in small pots filled with the same mixture that is prescribed for sowing the seeds in. Shut them up in a frame, and keep close and shaded. Dew them on the tops by drawing the hand over a wet brush twice a day, but keep them almost dry at the root. If you have a hotbed in operation, or any other source of bottom heat, you may accelerate the rooting process; but beyond all doubt the best plants are obtained without resort to any such aid. If they are made unduly moist they will rot, and there will be an end of them. But with careful management they will soon make roots, and from that time should have more light and air to keep them healthy and short. Plants that "run up," and thereby become "long-legged," never flower as they should, and in some cases will not flower at all. The preventives of "lanky" growth are light and air.

We are now nearing the winter, and we have a stock of young plants in smallish pots, and it matters little as to their future management whether they were grown from seeds or cuttings. They must be shifted into pots five inches in diameter, and the compost should be of the same description as before, or a little more substantial - say two parts loam, one part leaf, one part sand, and no peat at all. They must not be potted very firm - a moderate pressure will suffice; or perhaps, when nicely filled in, one good tap on the potting-bench will settle the soil sufficiently.

The place for them during the winter is on a shelf in an airy greenhouse, near the glass, but not so near as to suffer during a sharp frost. If put on a stage far from the glass they will be "drawn," or, in other words, will become long-legged and weak; but if near the glass, and far away from the hot-water pipes, they will be short and leafy and strong. But though as far from the pipes or flues as possible, they require a temperature during winter never below 40?, and therefore what is called a warm greenhouse is the best place for them.