188 UISCEL1 ANY OF NOTES AND CORRESPONDENCE. 



length, from six inches to eighteen inches long, will succeed ; those of last year 

 being t lie best. Leave the end of the graft wedge-shaged 3 that is, the co- 

 lumnar axis three-fourths of an inch, clearing away all the soft fleshy part to 

 that length; then press it firmly into the stock until both edges meet, passing a 

 spine cf Opuntia lcmgispina, or some other strong Opuntia, through the stock 

 and graft, to keep it from rising out of its place ; bind a Jit t ie soft moss round 

 the part operated upon, and keep it shaded ; in a week or ten days it will have 

 taken hold, provided it i* properly performed ; in the course of a month the 

 moss may be removed, and the graft cut to four or six eyes, if a bushy regular 

 head is required. Plants on stocks six feet high l'>ok the best trained on 

 mushroom-shaped trellises. 1 h.ive found grafts with several shoots of from six 

 to twelve inches each succeed as well as smaller ones, provided the stecks are 

 healthy. I have a plant at this time of Epiphyllum speciosum, grafted on 

 Cereus speciosissimus Sept. 4, 1840; the stock is six feet high, and the 

 circumference of the bead twelve feet ;. many of the branches or leaves four feet 

 long. 



To Raisk Roses from Seed. — Having succeeded in raising some beautiful 

 seedlings, I forward the particulars of my method. 



In October, I collected the ripest hips of the red officinal, Portland, and 

 velvet Roses. These three sorts teed freely. They were growing among thu 

 finer sorts, which seldom ripen any seed. Afier gathering the hips, I laid them 

 cm a stone-paved floor, and rubbed them under a brick, to soften the seed- 

 vessels ; then 1 rubbed them one by one between my fingers. Of this mass I 

 had about two quarts. I sowed the seed immediately, on a will border, with 

 an aspect opposite the sun at eight o'clock in the morning. The soil was 

 sandy loam. I covered them half an inch deep, and added an inch of sawdust 

 to keep the bed from caking in winter. I removed the sawdust ab.mt the 

 middle of the following March, and in the end of that month the plants began 

 to appear ; but in a few days 1 found that the small birds picked them up as 

 soon as their seed-leaves appeared above ground. I put hoops over the beds, 

 and threw a net over them, so as to exclude the birds. The plants continued to 

 come up till September, when mildew attacked them, and in a short time 

 depiived them of their leaves ; by counting the plants on a square f iot, 1 found 

 that the bed contained about 800. As winter set in I sifted some fine sand 

 among the plants ; but, in spite of all my care, the weakest of them died before 

 the next March. When I took them up, the living plants amounted only to 

 about 100. 1 planted them in rows a foot separate each way. A few more 

 died ; but what remained grew vigorously, and stood their second winter without 

 a death. I did not at all prune them, and the following summer they have all 

 grown well. 



On the Cultivation of Anthoi.yza j^thiopica. — Autholyza TEthiopica is an 

 old acquaintance of mine, and I have never seen or found any difficulty in 

 blooming it, treated precisely the same as Ixia Babiana, and that class of Cape 

 bulbs, which is directly opposite to the above suggestions. Among other bulbs, 

 some two or three years ago, were some of Autholyza ^ithiopica, in pots. In 

 the month of September of that year, I shook them out of their pots, &c\, where 

 they had apparently stood several years, and I re-notted them in some fresh 

 compost, of equal proportions of peat and loam, with an eighth of white sand 

 (more or less peat and sand, in proportion to the texture of the loim); they 

 were then placed in a cold frame, with other things of their class, with the 

 lights off day and night at first; and, as they began to grow, and the nights 

 got colder, shut up at night, and always, from a superabundance of wet, 

 watered only as they required it. In this situation they were kept as late in 

 the fall as possible, protected by mats from frosts at night, until the season 

 began to have a wintry aspect, when they were removed into a cool part of the 

 greenhouse, where they had plenty of light and air. In this way we have had, 

 in the month of March, for the last two years, Ant holy za yEthiopica flower very 

 freely. Although not the most splendid genus of the order, it is really very 



