CALENDAR OF OPEKATIONS FOR JANUARY. 



291 



Others are in fine bloom. See 

 that they do not get too dry, an 

 error in which many involve them- 

 selves in trying to avoid making 

 them too wet. If any of them 

 have filled their pots too full with 

 roots they will require much 

 oftener watering, or else a change 

 from one pot to the other. The 

 former is the best, perhaps, till 

 after the bloom ; but a little hquid 

 manure is the best thing to 

 moisten the roots with when there 

 is a lack of room. 



Insects. — The pest of the green- 

 house dming winter and spring 

 is the green fly or aphis, and in 

 the mild weather at this time of 

 year they are sure to make 

 their appearance, on some of the 

 soft-Avooded races especially. They 

 should be destroyed by fumigation 

 at the outset, as soon as they are 

 observed ; for if left for only a 

 week they will have spread 

 amazingly, and have done consi- 

 derable damage. The following 

 is a simple mode of fumigation : — 

 Close the house at every point, 

 choosing a day when the air 

 is dull and heavy. Towards 

 evening apply the fumes of strong 

 common tobacco. Get a six-inch 

 flower-pot, with a wire handle 

 like a basket for convenience of 

 lifting about; make in the sides 

 clo^e to the bottom two or three 

 holes as large as a half crown, 

 besides that in the bottom. Put 

 a " handful " of clear red-hot 

 cinders in the bottom of the pot, 

 and having quickly carried it into 

 the greenhouse, spread over them 

 a layer of the tobacco damped. 

 This is to be covered over with a 

 good layer of damped moss. It 

 will smoke away and dry rapidly, 

 and would then burst out in flames, 

 which would be liable to injure the 

 foliage of the plants; but to pre- 



vent this it should be watched, and, 

 when it is ready to burst through, 

 more damp moss added. The pot 

 should be set on three smaller pots, 

 placed so that there may be draught 

 up the hole in the bottom. These 

 smaller pots, or stands as they 

 may be called, should be placed 

 in readiness in two or three parts 

 of the house, according to its size. 

 Place the fumigating pot first at 

 the further end of the house, 

 and when the smoke begins to 

 thicken thei'e remove it to another 

 part, and at last near the door, 

 where it can be finally attended to 

 with, little bodily inconvenience. 

 The whole house is to be filled 

 quite full with the smoke, and if 

 tobacco enough was not put in at 

 first more must be added. Next 

 evening the fumigation should be 

 repeated, and the morning after 

 that the plants should have a brisk 

 syringing, and then a fire with 

 ventilation, if need be. to dry up 

 the damp. A less troublesome 

 mode of fumigating is wiih fumi- 

 gating bellows, the smoke being 

 pufi'ed in through a small hole, 

 the operator continuing outside. 

 Where the smell of tobacco is 

 objected to, the house should be 

 fumigated with cascai-illa bark the 

 following day. 



Myrtles are often sufiering for a 

 long time for want of a change of 

 pots, and occasionally they have 

 been found so completely pot- 

 bound that the water could hardly 

 go through the ball at all. This 

 state requires that the ball shall 

 be taken from the pot, and soaked 

 for hours until the wet has pene- 

 trated every part of the ball, and 

 then it may be repotted in a larger 

 pot with the ordinary turfy soil 

 round it, and pretty well pressed. 

 It will want no more waier for a 

 long time. 



