168 Cultivation and Treatment of Cape Heaths. 



them proper treatment, a house should be devoted entirely to 

 them, for they cannot be grown to perfection in a mixed green- 

 house ; and I am convinced, they would amply repay for all 

 the extra expense and trouble they require. All that is necessa- 

 ry in winter, is merely to keep the frost from them, and most 

 of them, if they have not been subjected to too much fire heat, 

 will bear several degrees of frost. One cause of heaths 

 not flowering well, in fact, the main cause, is because they are 

 kept too warm in winter, for if they do not experience a sea- 

 son of rest, they cannot have time to form and perfect their 

 flower buds, which they should do at this time : but, instead, 

 they are excited into an early, weak, and unprofitable growth, 

 and such a course of treatment soon renders the plant worth- 

 less. The next thing to be observed is to give them, at every 

 opportunity, a free circulation of air, both in the winter, and 

 in their growing season ; for heaths will not thrive well in a 

 close confined atmosphere ; and, if they are drawn up, and 

 weak, they will but poorly bear the heat of summer which is 

 the most trying time for them. 



In summer, I believe it is generally thought necessary to 

 shade heaths a great deal. I have seen them hid away under 

 trees and stowed in frames, and shaded until they could not 

 bear a ray of light to fall upon them. They soon become 

 weak and sickly, and sufier far more than by being housed in 

 winter, if they do not perish altogether, which is generally 

 the case. My experience has taught me, that they will, if 

 placed in proper circumstances, bear the sun a great deal bet- 

 ter than is generally supposed ; in fact, naturally, the heath is 

 never found growing in shaded places, but the contrary : 

 they are always found growing on hill sides and open plains, 

 and, allowing that they have been made more tender by arti- 

 ficial treatment generation after generation, still in this, as in 

 every other similar case, the nearer we follow nature the better 

 shall we succeed. For the last two years, I have never made a 

 practice of shading heaths at all in smnmer, only in extreme 

 hot days. My summer management is this : as soon as the 

 plants can be trusted in a cold frame, I remove the plants 

 from the green-house. I choose, for the frame, an opensituation, 

 giving it a northern aspect, I then plunge the pots to the rim 

 in coal ashes at such a distance from each other as to allow a 



