1873.] THE CHINESE AZALEA. 415 



would only be so many hard lumps during summer, almost like so 

 many old brickbats. There the orchards are all in grass, and are 

 mostly of Apple and Plum trees. These do not generally produce 

 such well-grown trees as the freer soil. In many districts in the south 

 of England there is scarcely a set of farm-buildings without its orchard, 

 to both shelter the premises and yield remunerative crops of fruit ; and 

 almost all cottages and hamlets are embosomed amongst orchards, and 

 those who are not themselves fruiterers or market-gardeners often sell 

 their crops of fruit by public auction. These sales may embrace all, 

 or nearly all, the orchards within two or three miles square of a dis- 

 trict, more or less according to arrangements. Of course the orchards 

 and the nature of their productions are well advertised for a few weeks 

 before the sale, so that intending purchasers may have an opportunity 

 of visiting them to form an opinion of what the crops may be worth. 

 The sale takes place at some convenient central place. Prices vary con- 

 siderably : in some cases we have wondered how they could pay the 

 purchasers, from the very high price given by them for the crop of 

 fruit, — sometimes £40 an acre for Cherry and Gooseberry orchards, 

 besides all attendant expenses of gathering and sending to market, 

 which may be about a quarter more ; but of course few, as a general rule, 

 come up to this figure. This has been obtained this season in a few 

 cases only — while, as was the case last year, few if any reached more 

 than one-half so much j and of course where they are in grass they 

 are proportionably less. G. D. 



THE CHIlSrESE AZALEA. 



{Continued froim page 375. ) 



General Treatment. — Although the details of what is considered the 

 best way of propagating the Azalea were given in a former paper, the 

 more general course in private establishments of working into a stock 

 is to purchase young plants, and, of course, where a collection has to 

 be rapidly formed it is the quickest way. Supposing, however, that 

 the grower is in possession of young grafted plants in, say, 5-inch pots 

 in early spring, and the object is to grow them into as large and free- 

 flowering plants as possible before the autumn, they should, in Febru- 

 ary, be introduced into a temperature of from 55° to 60°, with 10° 

 more with sun by day, placing them near the glass. By careful atten- 

 tion to such points as keeping them steadily moist at the roots, and 

 syringing them freely overhead morning and afternoon, they soon begin 

 to grow freely ; and presuming that their pots are well filled with 

 roots, they should be shifted from 5-inch into 7-inch pots. 



The chief points for consideration in the operation of shifting are 



