i885 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



231 



Greenhouse and House Gardening. 



COMMUNICATIONS. 



CULTURE OF CACTUSES. 

 BY A. L. SILER. 



For several weeks past I have been on the tip- 

 toe of expectation over an article on the growth, 

 culture and habits of the Cactus, that my Cactus 

 correspondents have been telling me would ap- 

 pear in "this month's Gardeners' Monthly." 



I have just read that article, which is very good 

 and excellent as far as it goes. The writer says 

 the best way to treat them (the Cactuses), is to put 

 them away where the temperature, does not fall 

 below 45O. I do not know how cold it is in 

 Canada at 45", but here in Utah, Echinocereus 

 phoeniceus, Echinocactus Simpsonii, Mamillaria 

 vivipara, var. Neo IVIexicana, and Opunta Mis- 

 souriensis, stand out in their native places and 

 do well with frost 22^ below zero ; but they grow 

 upon well-drained, gravelly hillsides, and are 

 usually covered with snow from Christmas to the 

 following May. So much for the iron-clad Cactus. 

 Then there are Cereus Engelmanni, Echinocactus 

 Whippleii, Echinocactus Sileri, Echinocactus 

 cylindraceus, Opuntia rutila, Mamillaria chloran- 

 tha, that grow with the Agave Utahense on the 

 sand-stone ledges, in many instances with hardly 

 sand enough to cover their roots, and there are 

 two Cactuses that stand out exposed to the fierce 

 heat of the summer sun where hardly a lizard is 

 to be found, with the thermometer down to zero 

 in the winter. 



In the Beaver Dam Mountains, west of St. 

 George, growing in the sand on the limestone 

 ledges with Yucca brevifolia are Echinocactus 

 Johnsoni and E. LeContii. In this locaUty there 

 is but little snow, but the thermometer often falls 

 within ten degrees of zero. 



The question has been asked of me very often 

 lately as to when it rains and when it does not. 

 Snows and rain commence about the 15th of 

 December and continue until about the first of 

 May, when a period of drought sets in, lasting un- 

 til about the 24th of July. This being a holiday, 

 it always rains, and it continues to rain until the 

 last of .August. At the higher altitude? where 

 the first-named Cactus grow, frost usually follows 



a rain, let it be at what season of the year it may. 

 Last night, June nth, ice formed 54^ inch thick, 

 following a very unusual ram storm that came off 

 last week. 



A few years since I had a number of Agave 

 Utahense that I wanted to keep until I could get 

 orders for them. I planted them with a Mamil- 

 laria vivipara in a box of clay soil, and told the 

 lady in charge of the place to water them oc- 

 casionally. I was away for some two or three 

 months. When I returned to get my Agave 

 plants to send away, I found them swimming in 

 water and was informed that they had been 

 sitting on a back porch where they got the 

 morning sun only with a pail of water from the 

 well every morning. I expected that they were 

 ruined, but tp my surprise they were well supplied 

 with new roots. I have, when collecting Cactus, 

 set out on dry ground in favorable locations what 

 I had left over after filling orders ; but I have 

 never had the good fortune to have any of them 

 root as well as the M. vivipara set with the Agave 

 noted. 



A number of the readers of the G.a.rdeners' 

 Monthly have asked me to tell them about the 

 soil that our Cactus grow in. Cereus Engel- 

 manni arrives to its greatest perfection on the 

 ragged edges of limestone ledges with a soil of 

 clay and gravel. Echinocactus Johnsonii, E. 

 LeContii, M. chlorantha and Opuntia rutila delight 

 in a southwesterly exposure on the side of sandy 

 and gravelly ridges with bed rock of limestone. 

 Echinocactus cylindraceus, E. xeranthoides, E. 

 Whipplei, Opuntia chlorotica, M. phellosperma 

 are found on the west side of canons facing the 

 morning sun, but never on the east side sand 

 on sand stone ledges generally. Echinocactus 

 Sileri on low hills, soil rotten gypsum. Echino- 

 cactus phceniceus, E. Simpsonii, Opuntia Mis- 

 souriensis, gravelly soil facing to southwest, or 

 on top of high gravelly hills about the rim of 

 the great basin. Mamillaria vivipara Neo Mexi- 

 cana, gain their greatest perfection in very tight 

 clay soils amongst sage brush. 



Ranch P. O., Kane Co., Utah, June isth, 1885. 



[This account of the kind of soil and the habits 

 of some of our native Cactuses, will be very in- 

 teresting to the lovers of 'these curious plants — a 



