574 THE GREEN-HOUSE. [Nov. 



the reach of frost or moisture. About the beginning or middle of 

 April, you may plant them in pots, which should be plunged in a 

 temperate hot-bed, and give the roots but very little water till they 

 produce foliage and are growing freely: towards the latter end of 

 May the pols inav be placed in the open air, to remain till the latter 

 end of September, when they should be taken in, and placed in the 

 green-house, or in the windows of some warm room till this time; 

 then to be treated as above. Or you may keep up the roots till the 

 middle of May, and then plant them even in the open ground; after 

 which they will grow considerably before autumn, but not flower 

 quite as strong as if properly kept in a hot-house. 



THE HOT-HOUSE. 



It is to be presumed that your tan-pits have been renewed, and 

 all your pots containing pine and other tender plants duly arranged 

 in the course of the last and preceding month, as then directed; but 

 should it happen by any disappointment, that this could not have 

 been effected, it ought on no account to be omitted in the first week 

 of this month. 



As the cold weather advances the fires in the stove should be 

 increased proportionably, being careful not to overheat the air, lest 

 thereby the plants shoot too freely, which would be a serious injury 

 to them at this season, by rendering them more tender, and conse- 

 quently less able to endure the vicissitudes of the ensuing winter; 

 besides, the most forward of the pine-plants might start to fruit, 

 which would ruin all your expectations; nor should the air be kept 

 too cold, that is, the spirits in the thermometer of Fahrenheit suf- 

 fered to get lower night or day than 52 or 54 degrees, lest the pines 

 become stunted, and many of the curious exotics lose their leaves, 

 and perhaps their extreme parts decay for want of that degree of 

 heat so necessary and so congenial to their constitutions. 



Give water occasionally to such plants as want it in moderate 

 proportions, and not too much at a time, for they cannot now dis- 

 charge it so freely as in summer; observing that it stands at least 

 twenty-four hours in the stove before you use it, to acquire the same 

 degree of heat as the air of the house. 



Fresh air must be admitted into the house every mild and warm 

 day while the weather continues open, but especially when the ther- 

 mometer is above (i>2 or 63 degrees; you must be attentive, how- 

 ever, to close the house immediately on any sudden unfavourable 

 change of weather, and always sufficiently early in the afternoon to 

 retain a considerable warmth in the house during the night, which 

 will, sometimes; in the early part of the month, supersede the 

 necessity of fire, or at least of but very little. 



The art of managing tender exotic plants consists principally in 



