TO THE FLOWER GARDEN. 105 



put in the stove to bring them forward. The seeds of all the 

 family may be sown in pans, and placed in the stove when 

 the plants are large enough to prick out, which job must be 

 done with gloves on, or they will greatly punish the hands 

 with their prickles. They may be put four or five in a pot, 

 and kept growing in the stove until they indicate a want of 

 rest ; then cease to give them water and put them out into 

 the greenhouse. When they make a start again pot them 

 all into sixty-sized pots, and change them from time to time 

 as they are filled with roots. Portions of the branches from 

 one inch long upwards will strike root without any care or 

 trouble, merely requiring to be dried a little, and then planted 

 in dryish sandy soil. Many persons graft the Epiphyllum 

 upon the stronger Cactuses, and it is very effective to graft 

 the weak and pendulous varieties upon the robust, because 

 beautiful-formed standard plants or fountain-like plants may 

 be produced by such means. The Epijjhijllam trmicatum, if 

 grown on its own bottom, droops all round the pot ; but if 

 grafted on any of the strong- growing Cereus trunks {C. spe- 

 ciosissimus is the best), it forms a splendid weeping tree, which 

 ought to have a stem two feet high, for it will droop as much 

 as that ; and, as all the flowers come at the ends of the 

 shoots, such plants are very beautiful when well grown and 

 flowered. Good plants have been produced with an upright 

 trunk of Cereus, having three distinct series of branches of 

 E. trimcatum — one drooping nearly to .the bottom, a second 

 smaller higher up, nearly drooping to that, and one at top 

 nearly reaching the second. The grafting is easily done : 

 merely cut a slit in the stock, put in a bit of the kind to be 

 grafted, and tie it firmly. If the graft is of the larger sorts 

 cut the part to be inserted to the form of a wedge, insert it, 

 and stick a pin through both, to hold the scion in its place. 

 The best soil for these free-growing Cactuses is made of loam, 

 peat, and rotten dung, one-fourth each, added to one-fourth 

 part consisting of mortar rubbish and clean sharp sand in 

 equal proportions. The plants should always be " roasted " in a 

 hot dry place out of doors for a couple of months in the height 

 of summer, after they have made a growth of young shoots. 

 Three or four are generally cultivated — E. Ackermanni, E. 

 Jerikinsonii, E. speciosum, and E. truncatum. ' 



