ON FLOWERING THE AI.OE. 



81 



mixed, and again damped ; and continue this process for a longer 

 or shorter time, according to the known habits of the seed as 

 to speediness in vegetation, observing not to let it lie long in a 

 dry state, in which the lime is rather prejudicial ; and I feel con- 

 fident, if these instructions are attended to, the result will be be- 

 neficial. Before quitting the subject, 1 would like to call attention 

 to the immense use of alkalies in the vegetable economy. We 

 have seen their use in furthering the germination of seeds ; and 

 lately has been narrated in our newspapers the good effects of 

 quicklime sprinkled over the newly cut tubers of the potato : but 

 it is in preparing the food of the plant, or in rendering manure 

 into a soluble food for the plant, that their greatest benefits are 

 to be found. The different constituents of plants (starch, sugar, 

 mucilage, and lignine or fibrine,) are all composed of various pro- 

 portions of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. The water absorbed 

 by the root yields hydrogen and oxygen ; and carbon being the 

 only substance thus wanted, it has been tried to afford it, by ex- 

 hibiting to the spongioles of the root carbonic acid gas in its pure 

 state : but its quantity has always been undiminished, until mixed 

 up with alkalies in a saponaceous matter, in somewhat of the pro- 

 portions found to exist in manures of the kinds most beneficial to 

 plants. — Kilmarnock Journal. 



ARTICLE III. 

 ON FLOWERING THE ALOE VARIEGATA, 



BY A CULTIVATOR. 



Having been very successful in the flowering of the above spe- 

 cies, I send you my mode of treatment, which, perhaps, you may 

 deem it worthy of a place in your Cabinet. 



After the Bevere frosts are over in the middle of May, the plants 

 should be turned out in the open air, where they are not too 

 much exposed to the wind, but so as to receive all the sun pos- 

 sible, taking care to use the watering pot very sparinffHrdurine 

 the summer months, in order to check the growth of tie plants 

 Once in every week let them be turned round to the sun in order 

 to keep the plants m an erect and proper form, and by the first 

 week in October they may be removed into the greenhouse hav 



'"Sfotyil^oU* UlCm fr ° m aH dirt and filth ' S'viiig'them 



