4 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



they -will have a temperature of 45" by night and 55" by day. After 

 they have been there a week, raise the temperature to 50' by night and 

 60° to 65° by day, and make it a rulo never to flower a camellia in a 

 higher temperature than 65°. As the flowers open remove them to a house 

 a few degrees cooler, or lower the temperature of the house they are in 

 about 5^, which will prolong their beauty and prevent them growing too 

 soon, for they cannot grow and blocm properly at one and the same 

 time. 



Camellias should be bloomed in batches, and, if needful, they may be 

 had in bloom by means of a succession of plants every day througliout the 

 year. But this is not desirable, as they only produce really fine flowers 

 during the season between November and April. The selection of plants 

 for summer is a matter of some importance where camellias are grown to 

 any extent, as those that have been forced a month earlier than the usual 

 time one season may be forced six weeks earlier the next season, and so 

 on, the plants being prepared to start upon the application of the proper 

 stimulus, through having finished their gi"owth and gone to rest early the 

 season previous. Those to force next year should be got into growth as 

 early as possible, so as to be put out of doors early in Juno ; they may 

 then be brought in again at the end of August, be at once started for 

 bloom and followed by succession plants, so as to keep up the displaj' from 

 November to the end of April. 



Soil for Camellias. — Silky yellow loam, full of fibre, one part ; leaf- 

 monld, half a part ; fibry peat, or bog, half a part ; silvor-sand, quarter of 

 a part. They will grow in peat alone, but are short lived. The top spit 

 from a loamy pasture laid up twelve months and then mixed with a third 

 part of leaf-mould is a good compost. 



THE MAGIC EINa. 



The oltject of this paper is to fix upon the minds of our readers an 

 important principle of taste in gardening. The mere statement of that 

 principle need not occupy more than a page or so ; but it might then be 

 read and forgotten, and no good purpose would be served. But by calling 

 attention once more to my magic ring, I may be able to fix that principle 

 in the reader's mind, and the gardners of the land may hereafter be all the 

 better for it. Past issues of the Floral Woeld will show that the old 

 lawn plant, Spergula pilifera, after nestling among the mountains since 

 the day of creation, found its way at last to Mr. Mongredien's garden at 

 Forest Hill, where that magician of gardners, Mr. A. Summers, made such 

 wonderful pile velvet of it, that in 1859 Messrs. Henderson, of St. 

 John's Wood, " brought it out " as a substitute for Turkey carpets, and in 

 a very dull time the Floral "World was aroused with a new idea. These 

 pages will also show that the writer of this at once took the wonderful 

 plant in hand, and mastered all the secrets of its growth and uses for the 

 benefit of horticulture generally and the amusement of himself in par- 

 ticular. The readers of this work were informed of its behaviour in seed- 

 pans, in store-pots, on the ground after being planted out too early, and 

 after being planted again, when it grev\'" and flourished, and made the 

 fii'st of the lawns after Mr. Mongredien's, in the garden of a " weed by the 



