THE FLOEAL WORLD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 169 



niensis; Bourbon, Malmaison ; China, Mrs. Bosanquet. Additions 

 may be made to tliis list by those whose natural advantages will allow 

 them wider choice with prospect of return, but they had better be 

 had in any number of repeats rather than spare space be filled with 

 varieties of a doubtful or inferior character. 



Having recently had to remove arosery, I have become impressed 

 with a fact of great importance to the cultivating of that flower, 

 which is the necessity of annual or biennial lifting. I have lost I 

 fear several favourites of large size which had remained undisturbed 

 in the same place lor some five or six years, and whose roots had 

 penetrated so far that in removal they obstinately refused to come 

 forth from their haunts in the bowels of the earth. They have been 

 cut back to a couple of inches, but still show no signs of vitality. 

 Nevertheless, I still hope that the reviving influence of the virgin 

 soil and the summer sun may preserve them from utter extinction. 

 For the future Mr. Eivers's canon of frequent removal will form part of 

 my regimen in the treatment of roses, and I commend the practice to 

 the consideration of all rosarians, even to the dwellers upon their 

 paternal acres who are not likely to migrate to other climes. The 

 moral is this — the rose, like other beauties, must be liberally fed and 

 bountifully treated to keep up its buxom development, and this can- 

 not be done upon exhausted and unreplenished soil. 



PEOPAGATION AND CULTUEE OF ERICAS. 



BY W. n. nOWLETT, OF WHITWELL. 



fiHIS highly interesting tribe of plants popularly known to 

 us as Cape Heaths, and of which we now possess several 

 hundred varieties, are so interestingly diverse in their 

 habit, their form, and their colours, that, doubtless, it is 

 only the fancied difficulty attending their culture that 

 prevents amateurs engaging in it more frequently than they do. But 

 as I do not consider the growing a creditable specimen of erica 

 involves more skill than the growing a creditable specimen of pelar- 

 gonium, there is no reason for timidity in the matter. That they 

 require very different treatment to the latter is not denied ; but that 

 the principles which it is necessary to observe are as easily mastered 

 and acted upon is certain — and, if not now, will eventually be 

 admitted, as their culture becomes more extended. To assist, then, 

 the amateur to overcome any difliculties he may have experienced, or 

 expects to experience, in the culture of this lovely tribe is the object 

 of this article. 



Soil. — The heath is a native of the Cape of Good Hope, where it 

 clothes the sides and tops of mountains, and springs out of the cre- 

 vices of rocks, growing in very sandy soil, such as, in this country, 

 we call peat, and is found on our dry heaths, where our native ling 

 grows. One of the first things, then, for the intending lieatli-grower 

 to do is to select a stock of soil, and having looked out a spot where 



