ON THE PRACTICAL USE OF LEAVES. 



349 



weeks ; and whether you are to have a fine 

 setting of bloom-buds for the next winter, 

 and fine shoots and foliage, depends alto- 

 gether on the advantages of light and food 

 which your plants have during these cri- 

 tical three weeks named. The advantage 

 of guano water in making fine foliage and 

 fine bloom-buds, is now abundantly proved 

 by experiment ; there being but few of our 

 best practical growers of the Camellia who 

 do not use it at that season. 



The breathing pores in the leaf of the 

 Camellia are rather small, and therefore 

 easilj^ choked up with the dust from a 

 grate. Hence, it is well to wash off the 

 leaves with a syringe once in eight or ten 

 days. T have, for a couple of years, fol- 

 lowed this mode with the best results. I 

 wrap the pot round about with a bit of 

 coarse cloth, to prevent the soil from being 

 displaced, and from getting over-wetted. I 

 then set the plant down sideways in a bath- 

 tub, and give it a gentle shoiver-bath of luke 

 warm water. S^Tinging with a common 

 hand syringe is equally good, but not so 

 rapidly performed. I am quite satisfied, 

 from experience, that a shower-bath is as 



salutary and necessary to a house plant as 

 to a sedentary man. 



The Chinese Azaleas are so easy of cul- 

 ture, and they are so hardy, that they will 

 bloom quite well in a room where " Jack 

 Frost" occasionally enters ; and regular wa- 

 tering is almost all they need in the com- 

 mon routine. The main point in growing 

 them, is to watch them well when they are 

 making the spring growth ; (for, like the 

 Camellia, everything of the next year's 

 thrift and bloom is settled then ;) and not 

 let them, at that time, lack water and a 

 little liquid manure every other day. 



The best soil for the Camellia is made 

 by mixing one-half turfy loam, one-third 

 well rotted manure, (from an old hot-bed,) 

 and the rest leaf mould from the woods. 

 For Azaleas, equal quantities of turfy loam, 

 well decomposed dung, and peat earth. I 

 ought perhaps to add, for the novice, that 

 "turfy loam" is gotten by laying up sods 

 from a good piece of old meadow, or pas- 

 ture, in a heap to heat and rot. 



I will say something of other parlor plants 

 hereafter. Yours respectfully. J. B. W. 



iYew-lVt, Dec. 9Ui, 1847. 



ON THE PRACTICAL USE OF LEAVES. 



BY HENRY WARD BEECHER. 



There are two facts in the functions of the 

 leaf, which are worth consideration on ac- 

 count of their practical bearings. The food 

 of plants is, for the most part, taken in so- 

 lution, through its roots. Various mine- 

 rals — silex, lime, alumina, magnesia, potas- 

 sa — are passed into the tree in a dissolved 

 state. The sap passes to the leaf, the su- 

 perfluous water is given off, but not the sub- 

 stances lohich it held in solution. These, in 

 part, are distributed through the plant, and. 



in part, remain as a deposit in the cells of 

 the leaf. Gradually the leaf chokes up, its 

 functions are impeded, and finally entirely 

 stopped. When the leaf drops, it contains 

 a large per cent, of mineral matter. An 

 autumnal or old leaf yields, upon analysis, 

 a very much larger proportion of earthy 

 matter than a vernal leaf, which, being yet 

 young, has not received within its cells any 

 considerable deposit. It will be found, also, 

 that the leaves contain a very much higher 



