ERICA, OR HEATH. 



161 



ERICAS, OR HEATHS. 



sifting, as it leaves more of the fibrous de- 

 composing vegetable matter in it ; add to 

 this one-fifth good white sand, and well 

 incorporate the two together. 



Selection of Plants. In selecting plants, 

 it is of the utmost importance to choose 

 healthy, dwarf-growing, robust specimens, 

 taking care to avoid anything like meagre, 

 leggy, stunted plants, which might live for 

 years, but give nothing but disappointment 

 to the cultivator. 



Management ', Watering, &c. To con- 

 vert plants into handsome well -grown 

 specimens in a moderately short space of 

 time, they must have a liberal shift. A 

 young plant in a 60 or 64 sized pot may be 

 shifted into a 24 or 9-inch pot, taking care 

 that plenty of potsherds are used for drain- 

 age. Care must be taken that the soil is 

 thoroughly mixed, by pressing with the 

 fingers in the fresh pot all round the ball of 

 the plant, so as to make it quite firm and 

 close. After being set away in a cool frame 

 or pit, let them be well watered. This is 

 much facilitated by placing a convex pots- 

 herd over it, and watering with a spout, 

 leaving the water to diffuse itself equally 

 over the whole soil, which is a means of 

 avoiding what often occurs from watering 

 with a rose viz., the surface only becom- 

 ing moistened while the ball remains im- 

 perviously dry. 



To give a list of the numerous heaths 

 that are in cultivation, or even a limited 

 section of them, would be comparatively 

 useless to the reader and a waste of space. 

 Growers will always readily furnish buyers 

 with a list of the stock in their hands. It 

 may be useful to add that heaths like plenty 

 of air, which should be given freely, but 

 carefully. From exposure to dry, arid, 

 cutting winds, plants that are growing 

 freely are apt to get a rustiness that will 

 so disfigure them that months will elapse 

 before they are free from it. With respect 

 to plants growing in the heathery, or 



other house, during the continuance of coid 

 winds, to doors to the eastward should be 

 closed, and air admitted from the front 

 sashes, taking care to let down the top- 

 lights, so as to insure a free circulation of 

 air. When the plants are of free growth, and 

 the weather is of a parching character, it 

 will be necessary to look over them every 

 day, and water them freely, taking care 

 that none be allowed to suffer for want of 

 it, which at this stage would prove destruc- 

 tive to the flowering of the plants, if not to 

 their life. 



Ericas or Heaths, Hardy, How 

 to grow. 



Hardy heaths flower chiefly at the end of 

 summer and 'l.iring the autumn, and Erica 

 Carnea blooms early in the spring. For 

 beauty of habit, delicacy of tint, sweetness 

 of perfume, usefulness and durability of 

 bloom, they have few rivals. They are 

 also cheap. Good strong bushy plants, of 

 many varieties, can be supplied by most of 

 the leading growers of American plants, at 

 prices ranging from 6d. each upwards, the 

 price for the great majority being 2s. 6d. 

 each. The one great drawback to their 

 culture is, that generally they must have 

 peat -earth to bring them to perfection or 

 maintain them in health, though Erica 

 Carnca, and several other varieties, do 

 very well in a mixture of loam and leaf- 

 mould. As a rule, however, they all thrive 

 best in a hard, sandy, gritty peat. Bog- 

 peat is hardly fit for their growth, unless it 

 is liberally mixed with sharp sand and the 

 debris of freestone rocks. Dryness and 

 hardness of soil seem to be essential to 

 their maintenance in health. No one can 

 have traversed heath-clad mountains with- 

 out being convinced of this. From 6 inches 

 to a foot of soil is more than most of them 

 find in their natural habitats. It must be 

 borne in mind, however, that in such 

 situations the whole surface is covered 



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