73 General Notices. 



The soil which I use for this variety of the orange is one third turfy peat, 

 two thirds rich turfy loam, and a sufficient quantity of sand to secure 

 porosity after the fibre is decayed. I also add a quantity of bones roughly 

 broken ; but I am not particular about the proportion this may bear to the 

 whole compost ; one fourth will be beneficial rather than otherwise, or if 

 inconvenient to obtain, they may be omitted altogether. As regards pot- 

 ting, &c., this should be attended to as the plants may require it. I gener- 

 ally pot early each season, but as I am not anxious to encourage the plants 

 to make very rapid growth, but rather to keep them of a moderate size, and 

 aim rather at the production of well matured fruit-bearing wood, I pot only 

 where this is necessary for the health of the plants, and supply them, 

 during the growing season, with clear manure water from the stable tank, 

 to which I occasionally add a little guano, letting it remain for 24 hours, 

 at least, before applying it to the trees. This will be found to obviate 

 the necessity of very large pots, and frequent shifting. — [Gard. Chron., 

 1852, p. 3.) 



List of Showy Balcony and Border Plants. —Some of our cor- 

 respondents having asked for a list of evergreens and flowering plants 

 suitable for a border or a balcony during winter, one or two facts occur to 

 us which deserve a passing notice. In the majority of instances the treat- 

 ment which balcony plants receive, is anything but calculated to retain 

 them in a creditable condition beyond one season. They are, for the most 

 part, what Dickens, in one of his works, terms everbrowns ; or, if they do 

 vegetate for a few seasons, they are but sorry spectacles, and far from being 

 what they are intended to be — ornaments to a residence. Plants exposed 

 on a balcony are subject to great vicissitudes of climate, and if some little 

 attention is not bestowed upon them, no satisfactory results can be hoped 

 for; for, however hardy in constitution a plant may be, it cannot for any 

 length of time bear up against what an ordinary occupant of a balcony has 

 to endure. In summer their roots are scorched by the sun shining full on 

 the pots ; in winter their balls are often frozen into a solid mass. To keep 

 plants in a healthy condition, this must be avoided. Some means must be 

 adopted to prevent such extreme temperatures from exercising their influ- 

 ence on the roots, either by using double pots with a stratum of some 

 non-conductors of heat, as moss, between ; or by the adoption of some 

 analogous contrivance suitable to each particular locality, or the taste of 

 individual proprietors. And in watering, too, attention is requisite. To 

 saturate them to-day, and then neglect them for a week afterwards, is not 

 the kind of treatment calculated to preserve them in a healthy condition ; 

 and it is often necessary to examine the soil, to ascertain if the water given 

 really moistens the "ball" of earth, for the latter frequently contracts, 

 leaving a vacuum around the inside of the pot, allowing the rapid escape of 

 the water without in the least benefiting the plant, but leaving it a vege- 

 table Tantalus, famishing in the sight of plenty. These remarks, appli- 

 cable at all times, derive greater force when the winter treatment of such 

 plants is considered. Border plants during summer are but little injured 

 from want of attention ; it is in the cold winter season that they are chiefly 



