THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE 119 



OUT-DOOR MANAGEMENT OF CAPE HEATHS. 



ROCESSES exhibited in the development of a shoot of 

 any given plant, may, as a general rale, be advantage- 

 ously studied under two heads — the elongating and 

 developing process, and the maturing or solidifying 

 process. And still, assuming general principles, for 

 exceptions must be allowed, in proportion as a plant has been 

 liberally treated in the preceding season of growth, so will the 

 development of healthy and vigorous shoots take place in the pre- 

 sent one. Not so with the solidifying process. The present cir- 

 cumstances are the only one3 whicli can possibly affect that ; and 

 no intelligent gardener will deny that on the maturity of the branch 

 depends the quantity and quality of both flower and fruit, in any 

 case in which either one or both may be desired. 



To enter into the physiological why and because of the matters 

 here alluded to would, perhaps, be out of place, and extend this 

 paper to an undue length. Not that I deem such an exposition 

 would be useless or pedantic, for intercourse with gardeners, as a 

 body, not individually, far from it, assures me that the general 

 principles of the physiology of vegetable life are not so well under- 

 stood as they ought to be. 



And considering how useful such knowledge becomes when 

 employed as an auxiliary to sound experience, it cannot be too 

 much urged upon all members of the calling. Operations which 

 in practice can only be rewarded by successful results after a 

 circuitous and, in many cases, uncertain route, may, by bringing 

 a knowledge of physiology to bear upon the subject, be made a 

 certainty by a much shorter and more certain route. 



What a good chart is to a traveller in a country comparatively 

 unknown to him, a knowledge of vegetable physiology is to a 

 gardener in the daily round of his operations. 



And as it often happens that to accommodate a large stock of 

 plants room has to be economised by crowding, if the wood of the 

 current season has not been fully matured, fearful ravages are 

 occasioned by damp, and the plants are fully alive to every external 

 circumstance which could possibly affect them, which if properly 

 matured, they would have defied. It is a matter of question, when 

 all circumstances are considered, as to the policy of exposing exotics, 

 under pot culture, to the ever-varying influences of our climate in 

 the summer months. But in the present state of horticultural 

 buildings there is scarcely any alternative. 



As " much might be said on both sides,'' and as the more preva- 

 lent opinion ;md practice are in favour of summer exposure, I 

 forboar agitating the question at present — a question, nevertheless, 

 of paramount interest to gardeners generally. 



As the heath revels in a constantly moving and cool atmosphere, 

 :in<l as existing houses appropriated to plant culture do not furnish 

 the mean! of affording such requisites, when the sun has obtained a 

 moderate altitude removing to the open air becomes necessary. 



April. 



