\7G ON THE CULTURE OF ERICAS, 



ARTICLE III. 



ON THE CULTIVATION OF ERICAS. 



(Continued I'rom page 132.) 



It is long been an opinion, that the Epacris, Helichrysum, and 

 some other similar plants of the genera, enumerated at the com- 

 mencement of this article, should not be taken out of the Green- 

 house during summer, as the majority of plants are. This 

 opinion is strengthened, by the success I have experienced, in a 

 collection of about three hundred species of the best sorts, so 

 managed under my own immediate charge, and much more so by 

 observing the practice of those French and German cultivators 

 who follow a similar plan, as well as that of the superior manage- 

 ment of these plants in the Edinburgh botanical garden, where 

 specimens are to be seen grown in tubs, from three to four feet in 

 diameter, and the plants from eight to twelve feet in height. No 

 cultivator has been so successful in this department as Mr. M'Nab, 

 the intelligent curator of that garden, from whose valuable 

 treatise on the subject we take the following quotation. " When 

 I mention the treatment of heaths when in the house," he says, " 1 

 must let it be understood that if I had sufficient accommodation 

 under glass, I never would take heaths out of doors, unless it were 

 for the purpose of shifting, or taking them from one house to 

 another. My practice would be to keep them in the house all 

 summer, giving them plenty of air, and to keep them cool during 

 winter. I know it is the common practice to turn heaths out of 

 doors for four or five months in summer and autumn, and it is 

 also a pretty general opinion that by doing so it makes them 

 hardier, and enables them to stand the winter better than they 

 would do if kept within doors during summer. From this opinion 

 I must take the liberty of differing, as I know of no species of 

 heath that will not bear as much cold in winter, without suffering 

 from it if kept in the house during summer, as they do when 

 turned out of doors, and many of them, (perhaps all), 1 know, 

 will bear more cold in the winter. For, by the latter practice, 

 the young wood gets better ripened, and better able to resist cold 

 in winter." The same excellent authority, in speaking of plants 

 in general, recommends, where there is sufficient accomodation, 

 to keep all plants under glass during summer, and, in such cases, 

 to allow them plenty of room, " for unless they are placed quite 





