■336 Some account of the Echinocactus Eyriesii, 



Magazine, t. 3411; but neither of the plates can be considered 

 any thing more than faint resemblances to the flower, whose ele- 

 gance cannot be conveyed to paper. That in the Botanical 

 Register is much the best, but it lacks symmetry of form, and 

 both have not the pure white of its petals, which color, in flow- 

 ers, it has always been found impossible to picture with any 

 ■effect. 



As respects the cultivation of the Echinocactus, it is the same 

 as the other nearly allied genera. Our experience has of course 

 not yet been sufficient to discern whether this species requires 

 any difference of management. Our plant was potted in sandy 

 loam and a small portion of peat, and it has made a fine growth, 

 notwithstanding the injury which it received from the accident 

 before mentioned. Undoubtedly it is of the easiest cultivation. 



In our second volume will be found several articles on the cul- 

 tivation of the Cactacese, by Mr. Russell, of Mount Auburn; 

 but little can be added to his excellent remarks from our own 

 practice. It has been our rule to grow the plants in a compost 

 very similar to his, differing only in using, in the place of leaf 

 mould, which he recommends, peat soil: the most important 

 point is to give a good drainage to the pots, and this can only be 

 effected by filling the pot to about one third of its depth with 

 potsherds — coarse at the bottom, and finer ones on the top of 

 these. Mr. Russell's remarks upon the usual system of man- 

 aging the various species, particularly during winter, which has 

 has been to keep the soil completely dried up, without scarcely 

 a particle of moisture, are perfectly just ; we may add, too, that 

 the rule almost universally adopted, of growing them in the small- 

 est sized pots, is as far from a proper mode of treating them, as 

 withholding from them judicious supplies of water. It will be 

 seen, and, we suspect, w'ith astonishment, in an extract from a 

 late paper in the Horticultural Transactions, (vol. I, part V,) 

 which we shall give, that they are grown in large tubs! and with 

 the greatest success. The old mode of treating this family, 

 which we have always considered as destitute of their habit in their 

 native localities, is now nearly exploded, and the rational one of 

 allowing them both soil and moisture adopted. Many articles 

 have appeared in the English Magazines upon their cultivation, 

 but none of them appear to contain such excellent observations 

 as that which we have just referred to. It was communicated to 

 the Horticultural Society by INIr. G-reen, gardener to Sir E. An- 

 trobus, Bart., one of the best cultivators of the tribe around 

 London. 



" The compost that I use is an equal quantity of hght turfy- 

 loam and pigeon's dung, and one third sheep's dung, exposing 

 the mixture to the influence of the summer's sun and winter's 



