268 ON WATER PLANTS. 



ARTICLE IV.— ON WATER PLANTS. 



BY THE REV. K. RAY. MELSHAM DEVON. 



The beautiful Flowers of some of the Water Plants do at least equal, 

 if not surpass many of our most curions land plants, and especially 

 those in the West Indies ; I am pursuaded many curious persons 

 would have made plantations of them, if they had known how to have 

 done it : but though America exceeds us, yet we are not without 

 them in England, as the Water Lilies and Ranunculuseses of several 

 kinds, that are so frequently found in our rivers and ponds, and 

 especially in Cambridgeshire where there is a great variety. 



Water Plants may be cultivated in gardens, although there are 

 neither ponds, rivers or springs in them ; and I recommend the doing 

 of it in the method following. 



Either in garden pots glazed, without holes, or in troughs or cases 

 of wood of oaken boards two inches thick, six feet long, and two 

 feet wide, and two feet and an half deep ; if they are for large plants 

 that grow under water, the troughs need not be so deep. The cor- 

 ners of these troughs should be strengthened with iron, and the in- 

 side should be well pitched, and the outside painted. 



These pots or troughs should be filled one third part with common 

 unmixed earth for water lilies, or pond weeds, or such as require 

 depth of water for their leaves to swim in. 



And for water Arums, water Plantains, and Ranunculuses, which 

 love not so much depth of water as the former, they may be filled 

 two thirds with the same earth. 



And so for those water plants that grow in Bogs and Marshes, the 

 pots or troughs may be filled with the earth within five inches of the 



top. 



This may be performed in April, when the water plants begin to 

 appear, which may be planted from that time till the middle of June; 

 and the vessels may be filled with water as soon as the plants are put 

 into them. 



It ought also to be observed, that many of the water plants are 

 Erratics, swimming about from place to place, as the wind carries 

 them, taking no root in the earth, only striking their roots in the 

 water; as Ducks-meat, Frog-bits, and Water-Soldiers: a small 

 quantity of earth in the bottoms of the pots or cases, will be sufficient 

 to maintain the water in a right state for the support of these. 



And indeed, the best way to understand the right method of 

 cultivating them in gardens, will be, to observe the mode of growth, 

 and the exposure of those plants that we would civilize in our gar- 



