578 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE. 



this time loaded with fine foliage and flowers. This has been effected by 

 beginning with them when they are cuttings, keeping all lateral shoots 

 stopped, and the leader of each tied to a neat stake, shifting the plants into 

 larger pots as soon as they required it, and using a rich compost. Treated 

 as standards, they show to better advantage their small but beautiful flow- 

 ers, and afford a pleasing variety, during the summer months, in shrubberies 

 and flower borders, where they should be plunged in their pots, for conve- 

 nience in lifting and housing them at the approach of frost. They should 

 be liberally watered in dry weather, using for them occasionally a little 

 liquid manure. — [Gard. Chron., 1855, p. 7:27.) 



Slugs and Snails. — These are troublesome pests among plants, and 

 often seriously injure choice specimens. The following easy plan of de- 

 stroying them will be acceptable to all cultivators : — Scatter a little oatmeal 

 where they abound, about sundown ; and, by making a survey an hour later, 

 a good army of them will be congregated together, when they may be gath- 

 ered up and destroyed. The best time to catch them is just after the rain. 

 A correspondent, who tried this method, states that, in a strawberry bed, he 

 captured five tliousand in half an hour. — ( Gard. Chron.) 



The Laurustinus seeds so abundantly, and grows so freely from seed, 

 that I think it is to be regretted that we content ourselves with taking ad- 

 vantage of its propensity for rooting at every joint, and constantly raise our 

 supply of plants from layers or cuttings ; and it must be in a great measure 

 •owing to this mode of propagation, that we possess so few varieties of this 

 much esteemed shrub. I have been led to offer these remarks, from seeing 

 a bed containing several thousands of seedlings ; and a most interesting, 

 robust, various-leaved group they presented. 1 found that they withstood 

 the severity of the past winter, when thus only a few inches high, without 

 even the assistance of that excellent protector, snow. They consequently 

 suggest the probability of belonging to a hardier race, and assure us of 

 their being different in form, by already assuming the perfectly upright 

 pyramidal shape so generally characteristic of the plant from seed. This 

 alone, irrespective of the chance of a diversity of flower or foliage, would 

 amply compensate for a little more trouble being paid to this subject than 

 it has hitherto received. — ( Gard. Chron., 1855, p. G14.) 



How TO Bloom Camellias. — Having observed that a correspondent is 

 wishful to know how to bloom camellias with success, I send the following, 

 from an experienced gardener : — Hoiv to set Camellias with or without Arti- 

 ficial Heat. When the growth is nearly made, that is, when the leaves have 

 expanded in the young shoots, water should be withheld, so as to allow the 

 plants to flag but not shrivel. This should be repeated twice. After the 

 first flagging, water tliem copiously, filling the pot three or four times after 

 the water has sunk ; only water them this once, then let them flag as before ; 

 care is required not to allow them to flag too long, or the leaves will be in- 

 jured. This sudden check, at that period, I have always found, will cause 



