226 T HE FLOEAL WOELD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 



if not kept perfectly dry. As above stated, the whole of these 

 plants being American, they should not be repotted in early spring, 

 as is the common practice — which practice seems to have originated 

 from the fact of most plants starting into growth on or about that 

 time. I have often thought, that if amateurs and gardeners were to 

 think more on this subject, they would at once see the folly of sup- 

 posing that all countries had their spring at the same time as we 

 have in England ; it matters little with most persons if the plants 

 come from east, west, north, or south, they must be potted in our 

 spring ; and as the plants will not grow out of their season, the soil 

 gets stale, and when the roots do begin to grow they find the con- 

 dition unfavourable, and the result is stunted growth, and sometimes 

 death ; not through a wrong compost, but unseasonable potting. 

 The potting of Cacti should be left until June or July, when they 

 will be on the point of starting into growth. The best compost is 

 loam, with silver sand and broken bricks ; the quantity of sand must 

 he regulated by the stiffness or otherwise of the loam ; the object 

 being to make the whole sufficiently porous for the water to pass 

 through freely. As a rule, one gallon of sand to three bushels of 

 loam and one bushel of finely-broken bricks will suit for the genera 

 Opuntia, Echinocactus, Echinopsis, Cereus, and Mammilaria ; for 

 Epiphyllum and Rhipsalis, a mixture of rough peat and loam, with 

 a little sand and rough crocks, is the best. Such as R. cassytha, 

 funalis, saglionis, and mesemhyantJioides may be grown on pieces of 

 fern stems in baskets or pots suspended the same as orchids, and 

 very interesting objects they make ; Cereus flabelliformis and lepiopes 

 succeed best suspended in a pot, with the ordinary soil ; C. grandi- 

 florus, Macdonaldicei, and the other night-flowering species, grow 

 best planted in the back border of a stove, with a tolerable amount 

 of moisture in the air; it is not necessary to give them much soil, 

 as they get most of their nourishment from their aerial roots. When 

 the plants are to be potted, the whole of the small fibres of the roots 

 should be cut off. This is a very particular point in the cultivation 

 of this class of plants, as it enables you to get the plants into small 

 pots ; and if left on, they decay, and so do more harm than good, by 

 making the soil impure. Amateurs, as a rule, are very shy of cutting 

 the roots from their plants ; but a good cultivator of Cacti has not 

 the least hesitation about the subject ; and it is probable that they 

 lose most of their fibrous roots during the dry season, in their native 

 habitat. The soil should be made quite firm in the pot, and well 

 drained, taking care to put enough rough pieces of soil on the 

 drainage to prevent the soil from getting amongst it, and so defeat 

 the object for which it is placed there. Manure should be specially 

 avoided, as it will cause the soil to get charged with impurities, with 

 the least excess of water, which impurities the plants will take up, 

 and though they may look green and healthy, may some day be 

 found quite dead. Some persons recommend manure, but, after sad 

 experience, I say away with it. I also know persons who grow 

 their plants in nearly all manure, but they are grown for sale, and 

 their profit consists in the death of the same. Others, again, recom- 

 me nd lime rubbish being mixed with the soil — which practice has 



