i8 7 o.] CAMELLIA -BUDS DROPPING. 91 



and clean, and then make ready your favourites' food. The best method of 

 draining the pots is to place an oyster-shell over the hole in the bottom, and to 

 fill up for 2 or 3 inches with knobs of charcoal and broken bones. These are 

 much better than potsherds, inasmuch as they afford a certain amount of nutri- 

 ment, as well as serving for filtering purposes. Over these should be arranged 

 some lumps of half-rotted turf from a fat loamy pasture, well saturated with 

 liquid manure, the remaining compost being a mixture of hearty loam, some- 

 what rough, and well-decomposed manure. Pot firmly, but not adhesively. 

 It is surprising how the roots will multiply and spread in such a mixture, sup- 

 plying abundant foliage above, and in due season a copious produce of well- 

 developed blooms. The operation being completed, the plants may be con- 

 signed to a pit or the greenhouse ; or, if such accessories be not at command, 

 they may be set on a bottom of coal-ashes, and plunged in cocoa-nut refuse, 

 with hoops placed over, so as to allow of mats being used as a protection, when 

 necessary, from the frost ; this latter operation, however, is only necessary in 

 case of tender kinds. — The Gardeners' Magazine. 



CAMELLIA - BUDS DROPPING. 



I have had under my charge for twelve months a number of sickly Camellias 

 about 3 feet high, which drop their buds as they are about to expand. They 

 have never been too dry since I have had them. Water was applied at a tempera- 

 ture of 60° during last winter, with a little weak manure-water in the spring, but 

 there was no appearance of any improvement. I am now getting some fresh com- 

 post into the yard, not having had any before which was suitable for repotting; 

 indeed, they did not appear to be in want of it. Can you or any of your corre- 

 spondents recommend any system of culture that would render such plants again 

 worth growing] They are kept in a vinery from March 1st to the end of June, 

 when they are placechoutside until the end of September. — A. B., Strath Tat. 

 [We sent your letter to Mr Pearson, of Chilwell, an able cultivator of Camellias 

 who kindly replies as follows : — ] " If I had a lot of Camellias in the state de- 

 scribed by your correspondent, I would get some nice turf from a good pasture, 

 cut as thin as if it wez'e intended to be laid down for a grass plat. I would cut 

 such turf up by chopping it in pieces as small as nuts with a spade, and use it 

 without any admixture, and quite fresh — unless it were from a clay or strong 

 loam. In this case the chopped turf should be shook in a riddle to get rid of 

 some of the soil, and the grass and grass roots mixed with as much fine white 

 sand as will make it a sandy turf. I would then at once shake each plant free 

 from soil, and wash its roots, removing with a knife any that were dead, and 

 repot them in the fresh turf, in clean pots no larger in size than would comfortably 

 contain the roots. As these unhealthy plants will require stimulating to make fresh 

 roots, they should be kept in a warm greenhouse, not a stove, and be moistened 

 every day with a syringe till they have made fresh roots and shoots ; after which 

 they ought to be kept in a cool house always, and never receive more heat than 

 is necessary to prevent their roots being frozen. Of all the plants grown in our 

 houses, none are so miserably managed as Camellias. Where, in the neighbour- 

 hood of London, can a collection of well -grown plants be seen ? A plant as hardy 

 as a Laurel, or nearly so, is forced to death at one time of the year, and exposed 

 to every change of temperature at another. It is generally potted in a mixture 



