PARLOR PLANTS. 101 



been propagated by cutting the bulbs in four pieces, and only one 

 was lost out of thirteen or fourteen. 



He had used saltpetre at the rate of a teaspoonful to four gallons 

 of water, with good effect, but would use it as carefully as gun- 

 powder, and then only for certain classes of plants. A safe criterion 

 of its strength is to take a drop of the solution on the finger and 

 taste it : if it has the least taste it is strong enough. 



He had found the safest and simplest manure for a plant after it 

 has filled the pot, to be liquid manure made by putting a two bushel 

 bag of horse or cow droppings, according to the nature of the 

 plant for which it was to be used, but generally cow, in a hogshead 

 of water, and using when the water got the color of tea. A French 

 writer lately stated that he had renewed old mushroom beds by 

 such an application. Oldaker did the same thing forty years ago. 

 Mr. Atkinson preferred cow manure for camellias, and when he 

 used horse manure preferred it in a fresh state. For azaleas he 

 used " Standin's Gardener's and Amateur's Friend," an English 

 preparation. He had never known azaleas injured by liquid ma- 

 nure, and had found soot water excellent. 



To come back to parlor culture, he had never known good plants 

 raised in a room lighted by gas and warmed by a fiery dragon in 

 the cellar in the shape of a furnace, but when the plants were in 

 a bay window which was shut off from the rest of the room, they 

 succeeded. He had known two old women raise scarlet geraniums 

 that would make a gardener's mouth water. He advised cultivators 

 of plants in parlors to keep the leaves well washed, but to avoid 

 liquid manure. 



Mr. Wilder remarked that Van Houtte, the great Belgian culti- 

 vator of azaleas and other greenhouse plants, uses no other fertilizer 

 than Scheldt water and cow manure. In regard to the propagation 

 of the cyclamen, thirty-five years ago the system generally used 

 was by cutting up the bulbs. 



C. M. Hovey agreed with Mr. Atkinson as to the value of liquid 

 manure, but the preparation of it from horse or cow dung was diflS- 

 cult for city cultivators. He bad heard of a lot of sickly camellias 

 which were top-dressed with manure and watered, and they soon 

 recovered. Horse manure is of a heating nature, and cow man- 

 ure is cooling. He applies old, decayed manure to his camellias 

 that have been planted out, and digs it in. The method of propagat- 

 ing cyclamens by cutting up the bulbs is not satisfactory. 



