of camellia flowers for as long a period as possible on the same
plants, buds of all sizes should be selected to remain. Fortunately,
it is found in practice that the plants, unless overweighted with
blooms, do not cast off the smaller or later buds in their efforts to
open their earlier and larger ones. With the setting, thinning, and
partial swelling of the flower-buds the semi-tropical treatment of
camellias must close; continued longer, the result would be their
blooming out of season, or more probably their not blooming at all.

The best place for camellias from the time of setting their
flower-buds to their blooming season is a vexed question, which can
hardly be said to have been settled as yet. They may either be left in
a cool greenhouse, or placed in a shaded, sheltered position in the
open air. Some of the finest camellias ever seen have been placed in
the open air from June to October. These in some cases have been stood
behind south, and in others behind west walls. Those facing the east
in their summer quarters were, on the whole, the finest, many of them
being truly magnificent plants, not a few of them having been imported
direct from Florence at a time when camellias were far less grown in
England than now.

In all cases where camellias are placed in the open air in summer,
care will be taken to place the pots on worm proof bases, and to
shield the tops from direct sunshine from 10 to 4 o'clock. If these
two points are attended to, and also shelter from high winds, it
matters little where they stand. In all cases it is well to place
camellias under glass shelter early in October, less for fear of cold
than of saturating rains causing a sodden state of the soil in the
pots.