chap. XI.] MESEMBRYANTHEMUMS. 319 



The Japan Hydrangea (H. japonica) is very 

 ornamental, particularly the beautiful blue 

 variety. 



Mesembryanthemums. — There are very few 

 things in gardening respecting which gardeners 

 appear more to disagree than in the treatment 

 of succulent plants ; particularly of the mcsem- 

 brvantheraums, which are mostly natives of the 

 sandy plains near the Cape of Good Hope, 

 where they are subjected to alternate seasons 

 of extreme wet and extreme dryness. Culti- 

 vators, attempting to imitate these peculiarities, 

 have grown these succulents in poor sandy soil, 

 and kept them entirely without water at one 

 season, while they have been inundated with it 

 at another : but the fact is, that when we 

 attempt to imitate nature, we should remem- 

 ber that the attempt is useless, unless we 

 can do so in every particular; and also that the 

 plants we have to cultivate have been nursed 

 up into so very artificial a state, that if 

 they were transplanted to their native plains 

 they would probably perish, like a poor Canary 

 bird which from mistaken kindness has been 

 turned out of the cage in which it has long 

 lived. For this reason, w T e must adopt the 

 mode of treating succulents which the best 

 gardeners find most successful, without troubling 

 ourselves to discover whv it is so different from 

 the natural habit of the plants. This mode of 

 treatment is, then, to grow the plants in a rich 

 loamy soil, kept open, as it is called, by the 

 addition of lime rubbish ; and to give the plants 

 water all the year, but more moderately when 

 they are in a dormant, than when they are 

 in a growing, state. They should also have as 



