THE PARLOR GARDENER. 33 



Quantity of Earth requisite for Dwarf 

 Succulent Plants. 



A fact which, above all others, must strike us 

 in examining a collection of dwarf succulent 

 plants, is the extremely small quantity of earth 

 allowed to them. Of those which come most 

 properly under this head, some will live in pots 

 of the size of an ordinary tumbler ; whilst others 

 are cooped up in still narrower lodgings, their 

 domicile not exceeding the dimensions of a small 

 wine glass. It is because in general the succulent 

 plants, dwarfed or not, scarcely live by their 

 roots. Then, you will say, on what do they live ? 

 They sustain themselves on an aliment with which 

 neither you nor I would content ourselves ; they 

 live on the air of the heavens literally, and 

 without rhetorical figure. By the way, permit 

 me to remark to you, that all plants, without 

 exception, live more or less on the air ; even those 

 which derive the greater part of their nourish- 

 ment from the earth. 



Suppose some immense tree felled, split, and 

 cut up into small pieces, and converted into char- 



