u 



JOURNAL OS HOBTIOULTTJEE AND COTTAGE GABDENEE. 



[ Ftbrnary 3, 1870. 



better. For instance, for a 5-inch pot I would not object to 

 many pieces of this sweet turf as large as beans. For a 

 10-inch pot I would not object to pieces as large as walnuts or 

 chestnuts. For all particular purposes I would tear the ma- 

 terial with the hand, and not break it up with the spade. A 

 rough open sieve is only used in the case of small plants. 

 When the soil is fine from want of fibre, in addition to the 

 other materials of the compost, as sand and sweet leaf mould, 

 broken charcoal in bits, but from which the dust is excluded, 

 will also be useful for keeping the soil opon and regulating 

 drainage. 



Where neither the sides of a road, nor the turf there, can be 

 obtained, a very good compost for the general run of pot plants 

 may easiiy be collected from a ridged-up garden or a ploughed 

 field by taking the flaky soil on the surface during a dry day in 

 Maroh or April, and keeping it for use. I have scraped up this 

 sweet thin layer with my hands, or with a trowel, into a basket 

 or a barrow, and by keeping it in an open, dry, exposed place it 

 answered admirably for the generality of pot plants, such as 

 are grown in wiudows and small greenhouses. Hardly any- 

 thing would answer better, even for a Cucumber or a Melon bed. 

 The little additional care bestowed in procuring material wiil 

 be anything but labour lost. Attention to such details is the 

 first essential to success. Fcr instance, in summer, soil of the 

 description referred to may be used at once with no previous 

 preparation. Now, and for months to come, it should be ex- 

 posed to the air, and slightiy warmed before being used for 

 growing plants. Not long ago I saw stubby Zonal Pelargo- 

 niums, with balls full of roots;, in 5-inch pots transferred to 

 Cinch pots, but the plants had been standing in a temperature 

 averaging 50°, and the soil would scarcely have averaged 35°. 

 What a check this would give at once, and still more if cold 

 water was used for watering ! How much more would the roots 

 have relished soil at from 50° to G0°, and water at from 60° to 

 70°, and they would then have been able without check to have 

 pushed into the fresh soil. — B. F. 



FORCING- IN JULY AMD AUGUST- CAMELLIAS. 



"Pooh! pooh! Nonsense, whoever thought of forcing in 

 July and August ? " I expect some one will say. Nature may 

 do the forcing here spoken of, but there are times in which she 

 does that duty in a more perfect manner than at other times, 

 and the result is accordingly. Now, more depends on Nature's 

 forcing in the two months alluded to than is often admitted. 

 It may be true that the opc-ration requires to bo continued a 

 month or six weeks longer to prepare our fruit trees for doing 

 well in the following year, but there are plants which attain a 

 mature growth earlier in the year than fruit trees, and, conse- 

 quently, are benefited or otherwise by the weather we have at 

 the time. Of these Camellias and Azaleas are by no means 

 the least important, and I am not sure but out-door Rhodo- 

 dendrons are in like manner benefited by plenty of sunshine 

 at that particular time, notwithstanding the ideas some enter- 

 tain that shade is necessary to the well-being of the plants ; but 

 if those who advocate the latter view will recall to their me- 

 mories the season when bloom was most abundant, I imagine 

 it would be one when the preceding summer had been warm 

 and sunny, and in like manner an indifferent bloom would 

 follow a dull sunless season. Many other plants indicate in an 

 unmistakeable way the advantages they derive from a period 

 of fine, dry, sunny weather in preference to a damp growing 

 one. My purpose, however, is more especially to call atten- 

 tion to the influence the latter has on the Camellia, telling 

 seriously against tho blooming of the plant early in autumn, 

 when the season has not been favourable, and the reverse is the 

 ease when a fine hot summer has intervened. 



I am the more confirmed in this opinion by the difference in 

 the condition of some Camellias we have growirjg out of doors. 

 Last year excellent blooms were produeed in November, and 

 plenty up to the last week in January, when some Bevere 

 weather injured thorn; while this Eeason there is scarcely a 

 bud showing an advanced condition at the time I write (nearly 

 the middle of January), the treatment they have had being the 

 same in both seasons, if merely letting alone can be called 

 treatment at all. But it is the treatment from the sun that 

 tells its tale ; the July of 1368 and that of 1869 were widely 

 different, as well as the months that preceded and followed 

 them, and to this cause the absence of Camellia blooms in 

 December is owing; for thoy have been equally scanty in the 

 plant house as well as out of doors, as many can testify who 



have not adopted artificial means to force them. Taking for 

 granted that a large portion of the Camellia blooms produced 

 in this country are from plants occupying fixed positions — that 

 is, planted-out against some wall or in a border, they can only 

 be hastened into growth or bloom by subjecting other plants 

 in the Eame house to forcing treatment, which is not at all 

 times convenient. The character of the months here alluded 

 to affects the condition of the plants in the following Novem- 

 ber ; for if the late summer months have been hot and fo'reing, 

 the buds will be found in a swelled condition by the end of 

 September, and will begin to expand in October without any 

 further artificial encouragement than the shelter which the 

 glass gives them, and a portion of the bloom will be so produeed 

 early in the autumn ; but if some heat be not given, there will 

 be a partial cessation of blooming during December and early 

 in January, and a fresh lot of bloom will expand later in the 

 last-named month aud afterwards, the dark days, in fact, not 

 being so favourable to this plant's blooming, although with 

 artificial means it con be made to do so. 



Taking it, therefore, for granted that the Camellia is one of 

 the plants to which the advantage of a hot summer is of so 

 much consequence for an early bloom, the lesson pointed out to 

 us is, that when seasons of an adverse kind occur, and they 

 frequently do occur, our duty is to imitate as far as we can. the 

 heat that has been found so beneficial ; and those whose plants 

 are in pots, or are otherwise rendered moveable, will do well to 

 allow them to remain a longer period than usual in the forcing 

 house or pit in which the plants' growth takes place, in order 

 to ripen the flower buds as much as possible before the plants 

 are set out of doors to rest. In this, of course, some judgment 

 is required, otherwise they may be allowed to remain till the 

 bloom begins to open, which I have more than once seen occur 

 in July. 



Care also is needed that a second growth does not take place, 

 which sometimes is the case, but I believe it is often occa- 

 sioned by the energies of the plant having been cramped or 

 checked the season before. The growth in the proper season 

 was stunted, and a partial ripening of it taking place, when a 

 more favourable state of things set in fresh growth was the 

 result. These second growths, it need hardly be remarked, 

 are fatal to a good bloom, but they will now and then occur, 

 and are certainly often in some way due to the season. It 

 need, therefore, afford no surprise when it is affirmed that the 

 fine hot weather in July and August exercises more influence 

 on the floweiing of this plant than the most skilful treatment 

 that can be given it, and I have no doubt but it is to the sunny 

 skies of the Continent our neighbours over the water are in- 

 debted for the more abundant flower buds with which their 

 plants are studded, rather than to any special mode of treat- 

 ment. 



Let no f.ne, therefore, despise the summer forcing of this 

 plant, or that of some others ; for, however unfavourable the 

 dry hot weather of the dog-days may be for the production of 

 gias3 and certain vegetables, the ripening of certain plants 

 depends upon it in a degree that cannot be compensated by 

 anything we can substitute. To those, therefore, who want 

 this queen of autumn and winter-flowering plants in flower 

 in autumn I would Eay, Let the plants have all they can bear, 

 consistent with not scorching the foliage, of the summer heat, 

 and with due care and management the foliage of Camellias 

 will endure as much sunshine as that of any plant. Of course 

 sudden exposure after a long period of shade will be hurtful, 

 but I am far from certain that much shade is wanted, unless it 

 be to retard some late-flowering varieties. The health of the 

 Camellia in general is not bo much improved by it as many 

 suppose ; while to insure its early flowering, its forcing, either 

 by natural or artificial means, at the time alluded to ia essen- 

 tial. — J. Bobson, 



SELECT HOTHOUSE BASKET PLANTS. 

 On entering a stove or greenhouse one of the first things I no- 

 tice are the basket plants ; when well grown, to my mind, there 

 are few plants that add so much to the beauty of a house, and 

 so help to give a charm to those growing beneath. Suspended 

 here and there about a stove, they have a very chaste and 

 pleasing appearance. I am well aware there are many plants 

 which can be grown in baskets, but I wish more particularly 

 to notice a few that when grown with care form noble orna- 

 ments in a stove, and ought not to be overlooked. In offering 

 these notes I hope I may induce others to give us their expe- 

 rience and ideas. 



