322 General Notices. 



half-starved, half-choked specimens, which, for the credit of both the gar- 

 Jener and calceolaria, would be better on the rubbish heap. 



If you inquire the cause why they are not grown, ten out of twelve per- 

 sons will confess " that they arc beautiful things ; " but, says one, they are so 

 subject to the green fly ; another says they are so bad to winter — I invariably 

 lose them at that season ; a third says that they die as soon as they have 

 done blooming ; and one good gardener told me the other day, " If a person 

 orets them to do well once in his life-time, he has had his share of good 

 luck." Now in answer to the first, arc not geraniums, cinerarias, and a 

 host of other plants which these men " grow respectably," subject to the 

 green fly ? and will not the smoke of tobacco, with which he kills the fly 

 attacking his geraniums, kill the fly which is on calceolarias ? As to their 

 being hard to winter, it is more fanciful than real. If a person attempt to 

 keep the " old plants " it may be true ; but if cuttings are struck in August 

 or September, and be potted in 4-inch pots in October, and kept in a cold 

 frame until Christmas, then placed on a shelf in the greenhouse " near the 

 source of ventilation," not kept too tvet, not more than one in a hundred, if 

 even tliat, will go off" in winter. 



Then as to being subject to die soon after blooming. Now this is the 

 critical time, I allow, but it is as much the gardener's neglect as the tendency 

 of the plant ; not but he has many extenuating circumstances, for it hap- 

 pens that when the calceolaria requires most attention he has, in conse- 

 quence of other duties, least time to attend to them. Perhaps circumstances 

 have previously tended to exhaust the plants ; such as blooming them in 

 small pots, and in a house where ^re heal was employed, perhaps for grapes, 

 &c., or probably the sun shining direct upon them, and not having sufficien- 

 cy of air. All, or some of tliese causes, together with the large quantity 

 of bloom they invariably produce, will, I have no doubt, cause exhausted 

 nature to give in. 



But if the grower of calceolarias would consider of where they are na- 

 tives, and under what circumstances they there grow, it would point to an 

 entirely different mode of treatment, and the complaint would vanish, at 

 least to any serious extent. 



They are natives of the Andes Mountains, through Chili, Peru, and Pat- 

 agonia, and there form a belt round tlie hill, not far below the snow-liTie, 

 and the south winds from the Pacific Ocean blow on them, loaded M-ith 

 moisture, during eight or nine months in the year. 



Now, being natives of the hills or mountains, (which shows that they want 

 a light soil and abundance of air,) not far heloiv the snoicline, that the melt- 

 ing snow in summer will plentifully supply them with cold water, which 

 plainly says no codling for me. Most plants from warmer countries arc ben- 

 efited by having their roots warmer than their branches ; but with calceola- 

 rias this is not tlie case, which shows that we should not inquire from what 

 country a plant comes, but under what circumstances it grows in its native 

 iiabitat. The sotdh tvind bloivs upon them from the Pacific Ocean for so many 

 ?nonlhs in the year, again sliowe that air, " abundance of moist air," (for the 

 wind blowing from the sea will be loaded with moisture,) not dry, parching 



