1879.] THE GARDENER'S PRIMER. 223 



ing in saucers or " flats " full of water, giving them weak liquid every 

 alternate watering. Directly the majority of the spikes begin to open 

 their lowermost flowers, the plants should be removed to a cooler and 

 more airy house — they will thereby be better prepared for the dry air 

 of the sitting-rooms, &c, for which they are so extremely well adapted. 

 When the season is well advanced, the late batches will come on quite 

 well in the greenhouse with sun-heat. 



As soon as the earliest batches have finished flowering, they should be 

 grown on in a warm house till about the end of May, when they can be 

 gradually hardened off and planted out in the open border, or shifted 

 into larger-sized pots, and plunged, choosing a warm, sunny position, so 

 that the plants can have all the sun available for the maturing of the 

 crowns. The stock can be increased when desired, by breaking up the 

 largest plants into small bits, and planting them out in rich soil com- 

 posed of loam and dung in equal parts, in rows 2 feet apart and 18 

 inches in the row ; those in pots should also be plunged in the same 

 compost, and liberally supplied with water, with a little guano or other 

 good fertiliser mixed with it, when dry weather prevails. 



As soon as the foliage decays in the autumn, the requisite number of 

 plants should be lifted and potted, and placed in the orchard-house or 

 cold frame — in fact, any outhouse wil] do where they can be kept cool, 

 moist, and free from frost, so that the plants can be got at when wanted 

 for the forcing-house. Some gardeners are in the habit of potting them 

 as required, but we prefer to get them all under cover in the autumn, 

 about the month of October ; and at this potting it is necessary to re- 

 duce the balls of those plants which are not in pots, so that pretty large 

 crowns can be easily got into such as 5 or 6 inch pots, which we find 

 most useful for general purposes. 



DUNDONIA. 



THE GARDENER'S PRIMER. 



NO. II. 



All plants may be said to have had a natural habitat originally de- 

 termined for them at the different geological epochs of time at which 

 vegetation in some form or other may be supposed to have com- 

 menced, but the secondary causes which now determine the habitat 

 of plants may be briefly stated to be : The chemical nature of the soil 

 in which they are found — some plants delight in siliceous soil ; others 

 in calcareous, or limestone, or gypseous soils ; other plants again pre- 

 fer a soil impregnated with sea-salt ; others gravel or clay soil ; others 

 prefer to grow in the cracks of granite rocks ; and other plants appear 

 more accommodating than any of these in their requirements, and 

 seem to follow man to minister to his comfort or his luxury, and are 



