1 90 Horticultural Tour hy M. Soulange Boudin. 



vigorous growth. Their healthy appearance he says, is sup- 

 posed to be owing to the practice of watering them with watei 

 in which the leaves and stalks of common heath have been 

 steeped. This, we believe, has no foundation in fact ; though 

 Mr. Knight, the P. H. S., in a paper in the Horticultural 

 Transactions has suggested the idea of forming a liquid manure 

 for heaths, or other rare plants, by the maceration of the leaves 

 of their own, or of nearly allied species. 



In Mr. Knight, the nurseryman's hot-houses, he saw the 

 greatest number of seedlingcamellias ; and 

 he describes a mode which that cultivator 

 tried, but without success, to accelerate 

 the period of their blossoming. This 

 was as follows : when the plant had at- 

 tained the height of 18 or 20 inches, and 

 consisted of one shoot, it was bent so as 

 to form a circle, and inarched to itself. 

 {Jig. S3.) Mr. Knight's object was to 

 cause the sap to follow this course, and 

 by that means promote its maturation 

 for producing flowers; but it does not 

 appear that any manipulation of this sort 

 has much or any effect. 



The president of the Horticultural So- 

 ciety thinks even ringing will fall short of 

 this desired object; though the experience 

 of Mr. Hempel, the German pomologist, led him to a different 

 conclusion. It is certain, however, that the quickest way yet 

 known of inducing blossom in any seedling plant of the ligne- 

 ous kind is to take a bud or graft from it, and insert it in the 

 extremity of a bearing branch of a tree of the same species, as 

 the president does in the case of seedling peach trees. (Gard. 

 Mag. No. 1 . p. 70.) Much depends also on the full exposure of 

 the foliage to the light : seedling camellias kept in a house 

 exposed to the north, or kept in any house several feet from 

 the glass, will not come to a state of puberty or maturation 

 for flowering, as when kept within a few inches of the glass. 



M. S. Boudin admires, as every man must, the extensive and 

 well-regulated establishment of Messrs. Loddiges, and is in 

 raptures with their lofty palm-house, its fine specimens of 

 plantains, palms, tropical liliacese and epiphytes. He notices 

 their extensive steam apparatus, their beautiful contrivance 

 for imitating rain, their fine collection of camellias, and 

 their systematic mode, whether with the hardy or house 

 collections, of keeping the plants of each genus and species 

 by itself. So extensive a concern, indeed, could never be 



