AyB CONSEKVATOET. 169 



camelliaa in houses that admit of full daylight, must adopt 

 some eftectual method of screening them from the sun from 

 the 1st of March to the 1st of September. Hartley's rough 

 plate will be found invaluable for the top lights of a house in 

 which camellias are to be grown, as this excludes sunshine, 

 yet admits the ordinary daylight without interruption. As a 

 rule a lean-to is preferable to a span-house for camellias, and 

 if there is no method of shading adopted in the original plan 

 of the structure, the roof must be furnished with a roller blind, 

 or tiflany must be put up in loose bag-like folds, thus — ^^ 



Or the inelegant plan of smearing the glass with size and 

 whitening must be adopted. This last is a rough and ready 

 way of shading which costs nothing beyond the time of pre- 

 paring it, and is very eftectual. Our camellia house is in 

 rather too sunny a situation, and we have rendered the em- 

 ployment of temporary shading unnecessary by stippling the 

 glass lightly with pale green-coloured paint. 



The camellia house need not be very freely ventilated; 

 during the early period of the year they do not need much 

 air, and though they can scarcely have too much during sum- 

 mer and autumn, ventilators and doors may then be left open 

 night and day, or the plants may be set outside to ripen the 

 wood and perfect the flower-buds. Old greenhouses that are 

 dark and defective of ventilation, and therefore unsuitable for 

 such plants as the erica and epaeris, may be made good use of 

 for the culture of camellias. Though camellias may be grown 

 in unheated structures, it is far preferable to heat the house 

 with hot-w^ater pipes or a tank, so as to be able to raise the 

 temperature to 60° during the severest frost, as we sometimes 

 have the coldest weather of the whole year just as the first 

 batch of cameUias is coming into bloom and in any case there 

 should be the means of keeping out frost, which is never a 

 benefit to the plants, though they can bear half a dozen degrees 

 with impunity if the wood is ripe. 



We prefer to keep camellias under glass the whole year round, 

 and feel inclined to pronounce vigorously against putting 



