218 On the Cultivation of Cape Heaths. 



As soon as the plants are shifted, it is a good plan to peg 

 down some of the lowermost branches, in order to hide as 

 much of the soil as possible, and to keep the plant bushy. In 

 hot and dry weather, T take a watering-pot, with a coarse rose, 

 and well water the ground between the pots, a practice which 

 I find to be better than wetting the plants overhead, which is 

 apt to induce mildew, and, what is still worse, it causes the 

 plants to lose all their inner foliage. 



For mildew, the remedy experience has taught me to be 

 the best, is, to dust the parts affected with sulphur, and to 

 place the plants in a dry airy situation. The sulphur may 

 remain one, two, or three days; it may then be brushed or 

 blown off. When large specimens have done blooming, I 

 take a pair of shears and clip them all over. The free grow- 

 ing sorts are then placed out of doors to make their growth 

 and set their bloom ; the slow growers are kept in doors, and 

 are given plenty of air night and day. In housing the plants 

 in autumn, they should never be allowed to touch one anoth- 

 er, and, if possible, they should be elevated on pots or blocks, 

 so that there may be a free ventilation of air among them. 



Heaths require little water in winter; I make it a practice 

 to rap the side of the pot, and, if it sounds hollow, I give wa- 

 ter, carefully, however ; for to give much water to such vari- 

 eties as aristata, Hartnelli, Massoni, &c., would be sudden 

 death to them ; but, on the other hand, perspicua nana, West- 

 phalingia, the ventricosas, &c., require it often, always giving 

 enough at each watering to soak the whole mass of soil. I 

 water early in the morning in winter, in order that the house 

 may get dry before night. If the weather prove dull and 

 cloudy, (which it often does at this season,) I fire gently 

 during the day time, giving air, at the same time, at 

 back and front. I, however, allow the pipes to cool before I 

 close the house; for nothing is more injurious to heaths, or, 

 indeed, any other plant, than a high night temperature. I 

 never fire at night, unless there are 12° or 14° of frost; 8° 

 or 9° of frost will not injure Cape heaths, if the wood has 

 been properly ripened in autumn. I have frequently had 

 heaths frozen so hard that a knife would not penetrate the 

 soil, and they have not received the least injury therefrom. 

 Damp will do more mischief among heaths than frost. By 



