10 
Greenhouse and Stove Plants. 
STOVE PLANTS, 
movable shading. The green-tinted paste 
which is sometimes employed for smearing 
glass, unless for such things as filmy Ferns, 
is the worst possible shading that can be 
used, onaccountof its immovable natureand 
the great amount of light which it excludes. 
White paste, made with common bread 
flour and water, admits more light, but 
is very injurious to the paint, causing it 
to peel off. Where there is no alternative 
for shading except smearing the glass, 
the best thing that can be used for the 
purpose is whiting mixed with skimmed 
milk and water in equal quantities ; this 
is sufficiently adhesive to withstand the 
effects of rain, yet can be removed with 
ease when the season is so far advanced 
that it is no longer required; but even 
this, when laid on the glass as thinly as 
possible, and when only sufficient is used 
to break the sun’s rays, has the objection 
of excluding light in dull weather, and in 
the mornings and evenings, when no shad- 
ing is required. For conservatories built 
in the irregular style, with roofs such as 
do not admit the working of ordinary 
blind rollers, and where it is, nevertheless, 
necessary to use something to prevent 
scorching, the least objectionable material, 
either in appearance or having regard to 
the exclusion of light, is tiffany or fine 
netting. This should be tacked outside 
during the spring and summer, but not 
allowed to remain on any longer than is 
absolutely necessary. Although in the 
cultivation of most stove plants we are 
compelled to resort to shading, we look 
upon it in any form as a necessary evil— 
never to remain over the plants for a single 
hour when not required. 
WatER.—Most stove plants, consequent 
upon their rapid growth, need, when in an 
active state, a large quantity of water ; 
some require to have the soil always kept 
comparatively moist ; others, when at rest, 
want drying off, and should receive, for 
a considerable time, very little. At no 
season of the year ought water to be given 
in a cooler state than the temperature the 
plants require to be grown in; and all 
through the growing season it may, with 
very great advantage, be applied warmer 
than the temperature of the house they 
occupy. 
Sorn.— The soil required for growing 
stove plants should always, whether peat 
or loam, be of a good description, contain- 
ing plenty of fibre. This is necessary, as 
the amount of water requisite for the 
greater portion is such that decomposition 
of the vegetable matter contained in the 
soil is very rapid; this also necessitates 
the presence of sand amongst the soil in 
sufficient quantities to insure porosity. In 
potting stove plants there is one essential 
that should never be lost sight of; it is 
that the soil, before using, ought always to 
be placed where it will become as warm as. 
the temperature of the house in which the 
plants to be operated upon are grown. 
When the soil is used in a cold state it 
necessarily chills them, at a time when 
they are least able to bear it, when their 
roots have been more or less broken in the 
operation of potting. 
Tyinc. — The extent to which stove 
plants require to be trained and tied de- 
pends on the uses they are to be put to. 
For ordinary decorative purposes no more 
supports need be given than are requisite 
to keep them in shape, and to avoid an 
untidy straggling appearance. When they 
are to be used for exhibition the branches: 
must be sufficiently secured to prevent 
friction during removal, or they are sure 
to suffer and to be rendered unsightly. 
PRoPAGATION.—In respect to the propa- 
gation of stove plants from shoot cuttings it 
may be well to remark that, as in the case 
of plants that do not require so high a 
temperature for their cultivation, there is 
much difference in the readiness with 
which some kinds strike in this way as. 
compared with others. Much the greater 
number root readily from cuttings made of 
the soft or half-ripened shoots, severed at 
a joint'in the usual manner ; but in the case 
of all plants the cuttings of whichare advised 
to be taken off with a heel (that is, with the 
small portion of more solid wood attached 
which forms the base of the shoot at its 
junction with the stem from which it has. 
sprung), it may be taken that they are 
more difficult to strike, and do not root 
freely from ordinary cuttings. Plants that. 
in this way give some difficulty in their 
propagation can also, almost always, be 
struck from root cuttings, where the roots 
are at all of a fleshy character, and not 
naturally of a thin, hard, wiry description. 
Small pieces of such roots, cut into lengths 
an inch or so long, and treated in the usual 
way as to the heat and moisture, rarely 
fail to grow. In striking cuttings of some 
stove plants, bottom heat is an assistance, 
—that is, the means of plunging the pots. 
or pans wherein the cuttings are to be in- 
serted in a medium that does not fluctuate. 
between day and night like the temperature 
of the house. This is an advantage, parti- 
cularly with cuttings of such plants as are. 
slow in forming roots. But, neverthe- 
less, where the temperature of the house 
or pit at command is moderately steady 
and can be kept high enough, cuttings of 
most kinds can be rooted as well by con- 
