St 
tions, while in others they are unknown; it is difficult to 
Conjecture whence they come, and all but i le to 
8 
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"WODET Yoo) pun ee 
i 
€radicate them entirely. They batten upon the tenderest 
Toots, such as plants put forth when they are just begin- 
ning to grow, and if not kept incheck would speedily 
Produce irretrievable mischief. Lettuce-leaves, slices of 
Potato, Turnip, &c., are very enticing; and while they 
divert the attention of the enemy from the roots, they 
also afford an opportunity of capturing him. The col- 
lections which are watered exclusively with rain-water are 
the least infested. But the worst plague of all is the 
small white scale, which, in its first insidious approaches, 
appears only as a white speck upon the leaves, then covers 
them with a soft whitish down, and finally kills them. 
For this the following remedy will be found efficacious ; 
“12. dissolve half a pound of camphor in a pint of spirits 
Of wine ; the result will be an impalpable powder, to which 
add one pound of Scotch snuff; one ditto, pepper ; one 
ditto, sulphur, and keep in a bottle (carefully stopped). 
18 mixture should be dusted over the infected parts, 
and repeated whenever or wherever the enemy shows 
itself, If persisted in for some time, the mixture rarely 
fails to effect a perfect cure ; and it has the further good 
Property of acting as a most deadly poison to cockroaches, 
&e., which have quite disappeared in the collection at 
Knypersley since this mixture came into frequent use. 
Besides the above annoyances, the red spider and the 
rown scale are frequently injurious, but never except in 
Cases of gross neglect. 
4th. Give the plants a season of rest. 
' ithout a season of rest, most plants will not flower at 
all and others do so very imperfectly. It is easily accom- 
pee 4 variety of ways, either by moving the plants 
Nome © warmer to the cooler end of the house ; or by 
iminishing the quantity of water ; or by placing them in 
a cooler house. Hiven exposure in a hot, dry atmosphere, 
although it scorches their leaves, not unfrequently throws 
them into vigorous flower. Plants from the Bast Indies, 
and from other climates, where the extremes of drought 
and wet are not felt so severely as in Brazil or Hindostan, 
Yequire a season of rest proportionably short, and of a less 
decided character. 
5th. Attend to the condition of the air. 
Th winter 60° to 65° is a wholesome temperature for 
Most of the species; in the summer it may rise to 70° or 
75°, or even higher if derived from the heat of the sun. 
Where there are two houses, the warmer one should not 
be lower than 70° even in winter ; but, fortunately, there 
b mparatively few kinds that insist upon so hot a 
Ht th. _ The air should always be soft, and nearly satu- 
a ed with moisture. The latter should, however, be pre- 
eats from dripping upon the plants, as it condenses ; 
aa this is easily effected by fixing a small copper-pipe, 
T Plece of channelied wood, under each rafter and sash- 
i This a beginner is very apt to do, and a grievous fault 
48. When plants do not shrivel or flag, itis a sign 
e When watering is neces- 
it should not be done indiscriminately, but according 
Bs © wants of particular plants. It is also of great im- 
fe to use rain-water only, which may be collected 
Re ee: Purpose in a tank, as shown in the plan of Mr. 
tee €r's house, and which should not be applied of a 
hee below 60°. Syringing in moderation may be 
es recourse to in hot weather. Some of the Sobralias, 
i gether with Bromheadia palustris, grow more vigorously 
ir pots are set in saucers of water during the sum- 
mer months. 
des, the foregoing rules the following advice may be 
BRE + —* Do not aim at having too large a collection, 
rather strive to grow a few good kinds in the best 
ith moderate care and in a moderate-sized 
so: 82 the whole of the plants enumerated in the sub- 
“Century,” will thrive apace, and bloom freely— 
whom such a brilliant assemblage fails to satisfy 
i an ardent collector indeed. 
rents following is a ground-plan and section of Mr. 
be gi €r’s Orchidaceous house. That of Mr. Clowes will 
ven on a future occasion. | 
~— 
¥ ventilation may yield the necessa 
4 y yie ry supply, but 
the more freely any house is ventilated, there is ae ites 
° What Ratibnotin vent aivedstesyemneacic 
ingenions cone Lyons did not invent an easier name for his 
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Pit 
St. in. 
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making the hot house also a sort of aviary: 
absorb carbonic acid gas and give off oxygen, animals 
absorb oxygen and give off carbonic acid gas, and thus in 
nature the two great families of organic beings mutually 
purify or fit the air for each other. If we therefore keep 
the requisite number of birds or any other animals in a 
hothouse, it might be made comparatively air-tight, and 
both kept in health. By keeping animals in hothouses 
it is clear we supersede the necessity of thorough ventila- 
tion, and thus economise heat ; it is equally clear, however, 
that we cannot much increase the natural quantity of car- 
bonic acid gas in our confined atmosphere by this means, for 
the animals present would then necessarily suffer. A 
certain increase no doubt may take place with impunity, 
for animal beings have been found living in an atmosphere 
charged with two per cent. of carbonic acid gas: it is 
better, however, in all houses where operations are 
carried on in their interior not to encourage a great 
accumulation of this animal poison, lest the health of the 
attendents should suffer ; but in pits, frames, and hotbeds, 
which are managed from without, such accumulation may 
with advantage be promoted by particular means; and 
there can be no doubt when carefully constructed after 
the old method, with fermenting material, they possess 
superior powers for fostering vegetation to such as are 
heated with hot water contained in tanks or gutters. 
A fact in vegetable physiology must here be borne in 
mind, that it is only in the light plants assimilate carbonic 
acid gas: in the dark or obscure light they cease to 
appropriate carbon, so that what of this gas has been 
absorbed or exists in their structure passes off or 
transudes into the phere again, hanged, ‘hus, 
therefore, in the morning in a close hothouse there may 
be an accumulation of this aérial compound, but the first 
rays of the morning sun will give power to the first rays 
of the rising sun to absorb, make use of it, and in this 
way cause the redundancy to disappear. Where artificial 
means are employed to yield this gas, the morning excess 
in the house will be greater, and the attendant must be 
on his guard accordingly.—J. L., Newburgh. 
ON THE QUALITY AND APPLICATION OF 
PEAT OR HEATH-MOULD. 
A corresponDENT of this Paper, using the signa- 
ture of ‘+ Quesitor,’’ has inquired whether a specimen 
of that sort of peat ‘‘found in moorish bogs, and used 
in the northern and other parts of the kingdom 
for fuel,” is fit for the growth of plants. It is not in any 
respect the kind of peat (better called heath-mould) to 
which I have occasionally adverted. The great differences 
are these,—the portion sent is the true material, (pure 
vegetable matter,) but in its raw and unprepared state ; in 
other words, in an i pl state of d position ; 
whilst the peat or heath-mould suitable for the cultivation 
of plants generally, and of heaths and select greenhouse 
plants in particular, is the same Reels matter, after a 
a ae 
much higher state of f \ ani position : 
the former retaining its organic texture, in consequence 
of having been excluded from the decomposing power of 
atmospheric and solar agencies; the latter by Jong ex- 
posure to the intense and combined action of air, heat, 
and water, being so far reduced and decomposed as to 
enable the roots of plants to re-assimilate its chemical 
and nutritive properties (the basis of their own). The 
term “fibrous peat”? has been used by men as a mark of 
distinction rather than of fitness, as a texture of soil em- 
eager 
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ae > 
expenditure of heat, the external air in forcing being 
always colder than the interior. It would be therefore 
wise and economical in all cases to have a source of car~ 
bonic acid gas within the house, and thus obviate the 
necessity of a frequent demand on the external air by 
rapid ventilation, with its cooling influence. A portion of 
fermenting material, even where the tank-system is in 
operation, may be advisable for this end; but nothing can 
excel the practice I have observed in some instances of 
bodying the primary elements of vegetable matter by 
which plants are sustained, in contradistinction to a 
“‘sandy-peat,” which, to a certain extent, implies the 
absence of those same elements of vegetable support. 
From the fact that the best qualities of heath-mould are 
generally found almost and often altogether exclusive of 
a sandy ingredient, some eminent cultivators have held 
an opinion that a perfect {system of cultivation will ulti- 
mately dispense with all materials incapable of being assi- 
milated generally by the organs of plants. In most barren 
tracts of heath or moor-land there may be found, on 
turning the surface up to the depth of two or three 
