EVERGREENS. 



1 66 



EYED NAILS. 



.ncl peat, with a colouring of sand. As 

 soon as these pots are filled with roots, 

 shift into 12- or 8-sized pots, and return 

 them to the same quarters. By maintain- 

 ing a bottom and surface heat from 60 to 

 70, syringing twice or thrice a day, and 

 watering carefully, they may be grown to 

 any size you please. If you start them 

 early, the young shoots may also be 

 stopped, and two dozen flowering shoots 

 secured instead of one. But such a plant 

 well grown would require half an ordinary- 

 sized house to hold it ; and, perhaps, 

 plants with three to six blooms are the 

 most beautiful, and certainly the most 

 convenient. 



Management of the Euphorbia. The 

 propagation and culture of the E. 

 jacquiniceflora and poinsettia are similar. 

 The euphorbia possesses, however, one 

 peculiarity in the extreme, which the other 

 also has in a modified form. "When a 

 young shoot of the euphorbia is stopped, 

 it is seldom that more than a single bud on 

 the stopped shoot will break. By stop- 

 ping, nothing is gained in advance, there- 

 fore, but much time is lost. When bushy 

 plants are desired, from three to a dozen 

 cuttings should be placed in one pot, and 

 grown on into plants without being sepa- 

 rated. Cut plants of euphorbia and 

 poinsettia may be treated in exactly the 

 same way ; but the euphorbias do not 

 break so freely. 



Evergreens. 



Few things afford stronger indications of 

 the necessity of renovation and reform in a 

 garden than the state of the evergreens 



and hedges. These are so easily and so 

 insensibly suffered to grow wild, and are 

 so seriously injured by want of care and 

 the proper use of the knife, that neglect 

 cannot go on very long without its ill con- 

 sequences becoming manifest. Portugal 

 laurels and many other evergreens may be 

 cut in ; but with the common laurel it is a 

 saving of time to cut it down at once ; so 

 also with the arbutus and sweet bay. 

 Privet, and holly hedges, which from years 

 of neglect are found to be occupying too 

 much space, must be cut in. The former 

 may often be cut down with advantage to 

 within a few inches of the ground, and the 

 latter cut close on all sides to the single 

 stems. In a few years new and fresh wood 

 will fill up all vacant spaces, provided the 

 soil is enriched and kept free from weeds. 



Eyed Nails- 



In stone walls perhaps in brick walls 

 also copper or iron nails with eyes should 

 be let into the interstices, to tie 

 down the branches of the fruit / f~\ 

 trees, taking care that they are * 

 let in with the eye close to the 

 wall ; for the radiation of heat 

 from the wall is in proportion 

 to its distance, and the heat 

 which is one degree a foot off 

 the wall, is a hundred and forty- 

 four when in contact with it. 

 The advantage of the eyed nails 

 consists in preserving the wall. EYEDNAIU 

 Thread dipped in pyroligneous 

 acid, or flexible wire, may be use^for the 

 purpose of tying. This mode of fastening 

 is much neater than shreds and nails. 



