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THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



which is grown in a moist Btove, and 

 with good treatment blooms most 

 profusely; in fact, little plants a few 

 inches high will produce a dozen 

 blossoms at a time. This may be 

 grown as well in a warm greenhouse, 

 but it will not there bloom in the 

 depth of winter. Gardenia radicans 

 is much better for a cool house, and 

 never fails to reward the careful 

 cultivator with an abundance of its 

 fragrant white blossoms. The way 

 to manage them is to prune directly 

 after flowering, and grow them 

 rapidly in a moist heat; nothing 

 better than the heat of fermenting 

 material, the moisture from which 

 they quite relish. Harden them off 

 in autumn; keep them rather dry 

 during winter ; and start them into 

 bloom in a moist heat in spring. 

 Without warmth and moisture, 

 Gardenias rarely bloom as they ought, 

 but become infested with black-fly, 

 and are then more plague than 

 profit. 



A climber of great value to 



amateurs is Ehyncospermum jaa- 

 minoides. It belongs to the natural 

 order of Dogbanes. When planted 

 out in peat and loam, and carried up 

 the back wall of a greenhouse, it forms 

 a neat climber, and when in bloom it 

 perfumes the house most delightfully. 

 No conservatory, used as a promenade, 

 should be without it. As it rarely 

 grows more than four or five feet 

 high, it should only be used on a lo w 

 trellis, and does better planted out 

 than in a pot. 



For those who love old-fashioned 

 border plants, we will add here that 

 Solomon's seal, generally regarded as 

 odourless, emits a delightful honey- 

 like fragrance when cut and placed 

 in a vase in the sitting-room. As 

 this is one of the commonest of plants 

 and one of the most elegant, many 

 may enjoy a breath of spring who are 

 so bad off as to be without stocks and 

 wallflowers. Other fragrant flowers 

 are omitted from this list because too 

 well known to need vindication or 

 even mention. 



HOE VERSUS WATER-POT. 



Hoeing is one of the much-neglected 

 operations of which few have con- 

 sidered the value, and to keep down 

 weeds is generally the sole object of 

 using the hoe. Certainly that is a 

 good object, and if these observations 

 quicken the vigilance of gardeners 

 who are a wee bit careless upon the 

 growth of groundsel, couch, and bind- 

 weed, and other rampant weeds 

 among their crops, it will serve one 

 good purpose. But it must have 

 frequently come under the notice of 

 practical men that a piece of cabbage 

 or cauliflower frequently hoed 

 between, even to the extent of work- 

 ing the instrument very near their 

 roots, always grow to finer propor- 

 tions than similar breadths left to 

 take care of themselves, with the 

 ground trodden between to the hard- 

 ness of a Babylonian brick, " to keep 

 the moisture in and the heat out." 

 In such a case it ia made evident 



that there is a virtue in the hoe 

 beyond the killing of weeds that rob 

 away the nourishment required by 

 the crop ; and if the problem of their 

 well-doing is to be solved by observa- 

 tion, it must be at daybreak, when 

 every leaf is loaded with dew. Then 

 it will be seen that ground recently 

 hoed or pointed over with a small 

 fork is uniformly moist, while hard 

 ground adjoining the same plot is 

 almost as dry as during the heat of a 

 sunny day. The solution is simple 

 enough. The rough open surface 

 absorbs a large amount of dew, not 

 simply because it is broken, but 

 because it presents a greater extent 

 of radiatiug surfaces, for the deposi- 

 tion of dew depends on the radiation 

 of heat at the immediate surface, 

 and the subsoil need not and 

 will not be colder than the 

 subsoil of hard ground, although 

 it has a greater power of surface 



