PLANTS FOR HOME DECORATION OR EXHIBITION. 181 



push out laterals, to take off all that will not add to the beauty 

 of the plant, which should form an open but pyramidal object, 

 blooming constantly at the ends of the shoots, and constituting 

 a very beautiful object ; but, Like all other plants, when neg- 

 lected, rambling about with twice the number or more of the 

 shoots it ought to have, and these in the worst places for 

 effect. 



"We could instance many plants that are never grown in 

 perfection, and that are rarely fit to be seen at home or abroad. 

 Many of these may be classed among neglected plants, for 

 they may be found in many establishments allowed to ramble 

 their own way, perhaps yielding a cut flower now and then, 

 and never thought of as an object of ornament. 



Greenhouse Plants. — To grow plants for home gratifica- 

 tion alone, we need not be at half the trouble, and certainly 

 produce twice the effect. We may allow them to grow without 

 extraordinary support. They have at most to be removed on 

 a hand-barrow from the stove or greenhouse to the conserva- 

 tory, and the natural play of the branches for that short 

 distance damages nothing. The shortening of branches, the 

 training and general management, have reference only to their 

 intended situations, and the principal thing to guard against 

 is not to excite anything too much. Very few things bear 

 growing fast ; it always makes a greater distance between the 

 leaves, and consequently the plant looks poorer : and this 

 poverty is of the greatest consequence, because more conspi- 

 cuous when the plants come iiito flower, for blooms depend on 

 the number of branches in a given space, and if the branches 

 and leaves are more distant, the blooms must be so likewise. 

 This is shown very conspicuously in plants which bloom at 

 the base of all the leaves, as in fuchsias, epacris, and others of 

 the same habit. Besides, compactness is a great point in all 

 plants ; not when carried to confusion, which should always 

 be avoided, but when induced by moderate growth and judi- 

 cious pruning, or stopping. 



The Hovea is one of the most ill-used plants in cultivation ; 

 it naturally grows fast in excitable compost, but it can scarcely 

 be grown with too little dung, or soil too simple, so it be 

 healthy and clean. The earliest stopping, even when first 

 struck as a cutting, is necessary : not more than the pair of 

 leaves next the soil should be left, and this throwing out two 

 lateral shoots gives us an opportunity of stopping both at the 



