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flower. Old plants that have been cut | that pruning knives and hands washed 

 down, never have the flora! leaves as in a tank after they have been em- 

 large as a young plant raised from eyes ployed upon some of the exotics, will 



or cuttings with one stem. 



The following additional instructions 



destroy the fish it contains. Hippo- 

 mane bigiandulosa, the Manchineel, 



are given by Mr. D. Beaton, gardener the Tanghin, Sapium laurocerasus, and 



to Sir W. Middleton, at Shrubland : — 



" As an additional means of improv- 

 ing the size of the flowers, a strong 

 healthy plant, not less than two years 

 old, should be kept to propagate from 

 bv eves. This plant should be kept in 



Cainocladia dentata, are equally dele- 

 terious to man. Gardeners who have 

 merely rubbed the leaves of the latter 

 between their fingers, have had swol- 

 len bodies and temporary blindness. 

 Wounds from pruning knives smeared 



the stove all summer, encouraged dur- with the juices of such plants, are like 



inc its growth by all safe stimuli, and those from poisoned arrows. 



ha've onfy two or three of its strongest POISONS. Soils containing obnox- 



shoots allowed to remain. When these ious ingredients are certain introducers 



shoots have nearly done growing, cut of disease and premature death. An 



otr their tops, that'the plant may throw excess of oxide of iron, as when the 



all the strength of its vital energies into roots of the apple and pear get into an 



those eyes destined for your next year's irony red gravelly subsoil, always causes 



plants. 



canker to supervene. In the neighbour- 



When the young wood ripens, al- hood of copper-smelting furnaces, not 

 low the plant to go gradually to rest, only are cattle subjected to swollen 

 and when you cease watering it, place joints and other unusual diseases, cans- 

 it in a dry "part of the stove; should it ing decrepitude and death, but the 

 offer to vegetate too soon in spring, plants also around are subject to sud- 

 reniove it to a dry place in the green- den visitations, to irregular growths, 

 house to keep it back. About the be- and to unwarned destruction; and a 

 ginning or middle of April will be quite , crop once vigorous will suddenly j.vith- 



time enoush to begin to propagate it 

 At that time take the most prominent 

 eyes from the ripest portion of the 

 branches. 



Cut the old plant down to the form- 



er as if swept over by a blast. There 

 is no doubt of this arising from the salts 

 of copper, which impregnate the soil 

 irregularly, as the winds may have 

 borne them sublimed from the furnaces, 



er year's wood, shake off" all the soil and the experiments of Sennebier have 

 from its roots, cut away all decayed shown that of all salts those of copper 

 roots, and shorten the strongest ones; are the most fatal to plants. That they 

 repot it in as small a pot as you can put , can be poisoned, and by many of those 



its roots into, and place it in bottom 

 heat; treat it with due care as in the 

 former season, and for the same pur- 

 pose." — Gnrd. Chron. 



Aphelandra cristata maybe managed 

 the same wav, and no plant will more 

 amply repay the care and attention be- 

 stowed on it. 



POIRETIA srandenit. Stove ever- 

 green climber. Young cuttings. Loam 

 and peat. 



substances, narcotic as well as corro- 

 sive, which are fiital to animals, has 

 been shown by the experiments of M. 

 F. Marcet. 



The metallic poisons being absorbed, 

 are conveyed to the different parts of 

 the plant, and alter or destroy its tissue. 

 The vegetable poisons, such as opium, 

 strychnia, prussic acid, belladonna, al- 

 cotiol, and oxalic acid, which act fatally 

 upon the nervous system of animals. 



POISON-BULB. Brunsvigia toxica- also cause the death of plants. 



ria, and Crinum a.iiaticum. The poisonous substance is absorbed 



POISON-NUT. Strychnos mix into the plant's system, and proves in- 



vomica. jurious when merely applied to its 



POISON-OAK. Rhus toxicodendron, liranchfta or stem, almost as much as 



POISONOUS PLANTS. Gardeners if placed in contact with the roots, 



should be much more careful than they Ulcerations and canker are exasperated 



usually are in bandlinsi the plants they if lime be put upon the wounds, and 



cultivate, for many of them have deadly when Dr. Hales made a golden rennet 



qualities. M. Neumann, chief gardener apple absorb a quart of camphorated 



of the Paris Jardin des Plantes, says spirits of wine through one of its 



