552 General Notices. 



8-inch pots may be shifted at once into 15-inch pots, which will be suffi- 

 ciently large for the growth of very fine specimens, and training should be 

 attended to before the young wood makes much progress. Light, round, 

 wire trellises, eighteen inches across, and about four feet high, are the best 

 for the purpose. If a liberal system of treatment is pursued during the 

 summer, with a sharp bottom-heat, the plants will make immense progress, 

 and will cover their trellises closely. Towards the middle of September, 

 the atmosphere should be gradually kept rather drier, and the plants should 

 be wintered in a dry, airy place, where the temperature may average about 

 55°. This treatment will ripen and harden the young wood, and prepare it 

 for furnishing in the coming season a liberal display of blossom. 



If it is wished to have the plants in flower early in the year, it will be 

 necessary to replunge them in bottom-heat, say towards the end of March, 

 and to treat them much the same as directed for last season, except that the 

 atmosphere should not be kept moist; any shifting, of course, will not be 

 required. When in flower, (with which the plants will be thickly covered 

 if they have been properly managed,) they may be removed to the green- 

 house, conservatory, sitting-room window, or to any other desirable situation 

 where an average temperature of from 50° to 60° can be maintained. With 

 judicious management in keeping the atmosphere rather dry, and avoiding 

 the settlement of damp upon the blossoms, they will remain in perfection 

 for many weeks ; indeed, my own specimens of stephanotus usually i-etain 

 their places in the conservatory for some two months at a time, and most 

 attractive objects they are throughout this comparatively long period. I 

 am, however, careful to keep them perfectly free from red spider, and to 

 gradually prepare them for removal from a high, moist temperature, and 

 also to aiford them a close corner in the conservatory. 



When their beauty is over, they should be loosened from their frames, 

 the weaker shoots entirely cut out, and the length of the stronger ones 

 greatly reduced. The plants should then be placed in bottom heat, main- 

 taining, at the same time, a warm, moist, growing atmosphere, sprinkling 

 overhead morning and evening, and supplying clear, weak manure-water, 

 in order to induce them to break freely. If liberally treated in this way for 

 six weeks or two months, the plants will make plenty of young wood, which 

 must be ripened as directed for last year, when the specimens will flower 

 as abundantly as in the previous season. 



The stephanotus may be partially disrooted, when necessary, with little 

 or no injury. The soil will probably be found to have become sodden and 

 unkind by the end of the second flowering season, in which case the plants 

 should be turned out of their pots, the sodden soil and decayed roots re- 

 moved, and repotted in the same sized pots, unless it is desirable to have 

 larger specimens, in which case they may be afilirded the largest sized pots. 

 Treated in this way, the specimens will last — I know not how long, for my 

 oldest plant is still my most prolific bloomer. Good fresh turfy loam and 

 peat, in about equal proportions, broken small, with a liberal mixture of 

 sand, charcoal, or potsherds, form the most suitable compost for the growth 

 of young plants. To the soil for plants tlmt have been disrooted, I usually 



