122 THE UNHEATED GREENHOUSE 



In fact, they are much more apt to resent too much fussy 

 attention, especially in the matter of watering, than a little 

 wholesome negligence. Many business men have found 

 recreation and solace in making a collection of these char- 

 acteristic plants. A collection, however, hardly appeals to the 

 majority, but a selection may well be chosen by those who 

 have any fancy for them, for they are easily grown and easily 

 stowed away in winter, if, indeed, they are not in flower, while 

 they possess more fascination than might be supposed. I 

 once gave an Echinopsis Eyriesii one of the many-ribbed 

 globular Cacti to a friend, who watched, with a great deal of 

 interest, the slow evolution of the fluffy, button-like knobs 

 which one day were to develop into flowers. It happened 

 just at the time that a move had to be made from the old 

 home to a newly built house at no great distance, and, during 

 the flitting, the greenhouse was mainly left to chance. Days 

 passed by before the neglected plants came to mind, but in 

 the gloaming of an early summer evening some errand occa- 

 sioned a visit to the dismantled house. The key grated 

 harshly in the unused lock, echoing through the silent, 

 deserted rooms, yet lo ! a presence was there. A fragrance 

 new and unfamiliar pervaded the still air of the empty 

 house, filling every corner with mysterious incense. It was the 

 Cactus, which, all unconscious of neglect or oversight, had put 

 forth its long white trumpets after the strange, sudden manner 

 peculiar to its kind, and was breathing out its sweetness in all 

 the unearthly loveliness which white flowers will take on in 

 the fading twilight a voiceless poem, and for the moment 

 overpowering in its simple pathos. 



It is this quality of uncomplaining patience which gives to 

 succulent plants of all kinds a value not to be estimated for 

 busy people, and, it may be added, for invalids to whom the 

 care of a few pot plants is often a great resource and boon. 

 Yet it need not be supposed that there is no attraction in 



