8 Retrospective View of the 



Our correspondent, Mr. Teschemacher, has communicated 



an excellent article in our last volume (p. 168) on the ap- 

 plication of guano and nitrate of soda to plants : to that 

 article we must refer all who are in want of information on 

 this subject. Mr. Teschemacher's experiments have been 

 conducted with care, and we only regret that they have 

 been brought to so sudden a termination by the destruction 

 of the plants by fire. 



The greatest novelty of the year has been the Achimenes 

 longiliora. It is decidedly the finest acquisition to our 

 greenhouse plants of late years. When the other new spe- 

 cies are introduced, our greenhouses, in the autumn, may 

 boast of as brilliant an array of blossoms as in the months 

 of April or May. A. pedunculata, rosea, hirsuta and mul- 

 tiflora, are all very elegant plants. 



A short visit to Washington in October last, gave us an 

 opportunity of seeing the plants brought home by the Ex- 

 ploring Expedition. A great many of them are hot-house 

 plants — fruits of the tropics — and can never become gene- 

 rally grown. There are, however, some fine bulbs of the 

 amaryllidacege, oxalises and other small bulbs, which will 

 prove interesting to the lover of plants. A great portion of 

 the seeds distributed, with the exception of the Ericas and 

 some others, have not vegetated. Many of them had been 

 gathered three years. 



It was our intention to have devoted a few pages in the 

 last volume to a review of the new or one shift system of 

 potting plants, as it has been termed in England. Consider- 

 able has been written upon the subject in Paxton's Maga- 

 zine of Botany and the Gardener s Chronicle, and the 

 theory has several advocates. The practice we do not 

 believe can be recommended as a general rule ; some plants 

 it is true, may be at once placed in a pot large enough never 

 to require a shift, but others we are certain will be injured 

 by such a course of culture. It will not be best to give up 

 the old system till further evidence is given of the gene- 

 ral superiority of the new plan. Where economy of room 

 is an object, it must certainly be strongly objected to. In a 

 future numijer we shall endeavor to give an account of the 

 new system, with some of the arguments in favor of, as 

 well as the objections against, it. 



A great amount of useful information to the florist, in the 

 last volume, will be found under our head of General No 



