lt> OPERATIONS OF GARDENING. PART I. 



when plants, natives of this country, or of the same or lower 

 latitude, may mostly safely be transplanted, as little evaporation 

 then takes place from their leaves to exhaust them. For this 

 reason also he will find it to be the time when plants of the 

 same description may with the greatest facility be multiplied 

 by cuttings, the soil itself being to them then as a hot-bed, and 

 the dense body of moisture above acting as a hand-glass. 



Again, at this season of the year, he will not be long in dis- 

 covering, that to many of his more delicate plants nothing can 

 be more fatal than alternate exposure to the violence of the 

 rains and the fierce hot sunshine, that at intervals succeed each 

 other then. With regard also to plants in the border, that are 

 natives of a colder climate and that are in less vigorous growth 

 at that period, he will also observe, in most instances, it is not 

 the quantity of water that falls upon them in the way of rain, 

 that is so injurious, but that which is allowed to lie and stagnate 

 at their roots. For such plants he will find a place in some 

 gently elevated piece of ground, whence the water may be 

 gradually cai-ried off not long after it has fallen. 



It is at this season, too, that he will find the greatest 

 difficulty in the management of his potted plants, particularly 

 the choice kinds that require the shelter of a verandah. Many 

 of these, though not making growth, cannot dispense altogether 

 with some amount of moisture in the soil ; and of the water, 

 applied from time to time for the purpose of insuring this 

 necessary amount of moisture, that which does not pass off by 

 drainage has, except in the most airy situations, a tendency to 

 stagnate, insomuch as to cause the soil to turn sour and become 

 covered with a rank green mould, to the great detriment and 

 often death of the plants. 



And here may be mentioned one very striking fact, which 

 every one will hardly fail of discovering after he has had but 

 brief experience of gardening in India. It is, that there is a 

 certain range of temperature adapted to each plant and each 

 seed, beyond the limits of which the plant will not grow nor the 

 seed germinate. Take, for instance, the common red Geranium 

 and the Heliotrope : the power of growth in these plants, it 

 will be observed, is as much suspended during the Hot and Rain 

 seasons in India as during the winter in Europe, the high 

 temperature of the one climate and the low temperature of the 



