ON THE CULTIVATION OP THE CAMELLIA. ' 209 



visitors, but being carefully watched a quantity Mere destroyed, and 

 others made tlieir escape without doing- much damage. Thus, with 

 little care, you may prevent much injury for the future, now you know 

 the enemy with which you have to contend. It is only in very fine 

 warm weather in the blooming season that they will visit you. 



You have never told me in your letters that you take the Flori- 

 CULTUKAL Cabinet, if you do, you will find that I send a copy of my 

 letters to you to that publication, thinking that if what they contain are 

 useful to one person they will be useful to manj^ What I Avrite is the 

 result of practice, and I feel a pleasure in imparting to others what little 

 I have gained. Man, when in his most pure state — when he emanated 

 from the hands of the Almighty Creator — was placed in a garden ; if 

 we contemplate that garden, our powers are lost in its grandeur ; the 

 Architect was God himself. It was planted with the richest fruits ; it 

 was adorned with the sweetest flowers ; it was designed for the abode of 

 pure beings — beings but one step below angelic forms — beings created 

 in the image of the Deity — beings in whose form was shrouded an 

 immortality that should exist after this earth shall have melted away in 

 fervent heat. So mindful was the Creator of the Avants and happiness 

 of this his new formed being, that to sura up all the beauties of this 

 garden it was made a paradise. 



Though ive are not such pure beings, and our gardens are not a 

 paradise, yet with a contemplative mind, surrounded with the beauties 

 of nature, we may have our enjoyments, and with pleasure trace 

 " Nature up to nature's God." 



Yours truly, 

 Manchester, Dahl. 



ON THE CULTIVATION OF THE CAMELLIA. 



BY AN OLD PRACTITIONER. 



This beautiful tribe of plants has not received much attention from 

 your correspondents. I will, therefore, describe a mode of cultivation 

 which I have practised with great success. 



As soon as the usual flowering season is over, which is about the end 

 of March or the beginning of April, repot such of the plants as require 

 it in well- prepared compost of good loam, dung, peat, and sand ; the 

 quantity of each must be arranged according to the state of the plants, 

 for if the plants have been growing very vigorously, and have not 

 flowered freely, it will be desirable to use about equal parts of loam, 

 dung, and peat soil, and about a fourth part of sand ; but if otherwise, 

 make the compost a little richer, tliat is, not to use quite so much peat. 

 After the plants are potted, place them in a shady house, fronting the 

 north. If you have not got a house on the north aspect, place them in 

 any other house where you can shade them when required, and wiiere 

 they will be subject to a heat of from sixty -five to seventy-five degrees 

 by day, and from fifty-five to sixty degrees by night. This heat, I 

 think, is far better than greater, during their time of growing, as too 

 much heat at this time has a tendency to render the growing shoots 



Vol. xvjii. No. 44 — N.S. S 



