JVesi London Gardeners' Association. 315 



cuttings in each pot as before recommended. The pots should bewell drained 

 with rough peat earth. The cuttings should be watered soon after they are 

 potted, and then put under hand-glasses on a shady border during summer ; 

 and, as they get established in their pots, remove them to a shelf in the green- 

 house, as recommended for the seedlings ; such of them as are still in the cutting 

 pots may be put in a hot-house, but not in a very hot or dry situation. The 

 bell-glasses will require to be wiped frequently, and the cuttings regularly 

 watered. 



" Having treated of the ^rJca in its seedling and cutting states, I shall now 

 advert to its more mature growth. Having alluded to them when they were 

 five in a pot, which was in the spring succeeding their seedling and cutting 

 states, and when they have grown too large for their pots, and consequently 

 want shifting, this is done by carefully removing each plant with a ball attached 

 to it, and potting it singly in a pot, similar to those from which they have 

 just been taken, noticing to keep the ball of earth still uppermost, but planted 

 below the rim of the pot ; then set them in rows or groups, when they 

 should be named and placed in a cold frame, arranging them alphabetically, 

 according to their names, in order to see more readily the number of each 

 sort, and, consequently, the duplicates to spare. They must be regularly 

 watered during the summer months ; but, if very rainy weather, the lights 

 should be kept on ; as a plant in a pot fully exposed is much more likely to 

 be injured than if it were really planted out. As the winter approaches, the 

 same routine they underwent the previous winter is no less applicable in the 

 present instance. 



I have now arrived at the third year since the ericas were seedlings and 

 cuttings ; and, as much can be said in this stage of their growth applicable 

 to future years, it is my intention to do so. I set out with the idea of 

 being anxious to stock a heathery, and to grow some plants for ornamental 

 purposes. To attain this, the first and paramount object should be, to get some 

 good peat earth, taken from a high and dry situation, full of nutritive vegetable 

 matter ; and, as its fertilising property ceases in proportion to the depth we go, 

 hence the utility of not cutting it out much deeper than 7 in. ; this observation 

 must never be forgotten in the growing of Erica., nor, in fact, with any other 

 plant. A portion of the peat earth should be broken up, and, if not of a sandy 

 nature, let it be made so ; clean and drain a number of 48-sized pots ; then 

 put over the potsherd or sandstone some rough pieces of peat earth, the rough- 

 est side next the drainage, and fill the pot sufficiently to admit the ball of 

 earth attached to the plant; and take great care that the surface of the ball 

 is just level with the pot, because it is at this shifting that thousands of ericas 

 have been irrecoverably injured, in consequence of placing such balls perhaps 

 1 in. above the pot ; and the result of such potting is, that as soon as the hot 

 weather sets in, what with the heat the pot radiates, and the heat the peat 

 earth is susceptible of retaining, we water and water, but still the plant looks 

 sickly or dies ; we turn it out of the pot, and see the roots apparently healthy, 

 but, behold, all above the pot are burned. I have stated how the plant should 

 be potted at this stage of its growth, and to what I attribute so many deaths, 

 and the same principle holds good with the £'rica in a more advanced state of 

 growth ; because those roots which in the former instance were fibrous have 

 now, in a great degree, assumed much of the nature of the bole or stem of the 

 plant, from their having been brought up in proportion to the size or protective 

 nature of the plant against the sun's rays. When the ^rica is in a growing 

 state, the stopping of the shoots should be attended to, as it gives them a 

 bushy appearance, and prevents the necessity of staking, which is injurious, 

 and inconsistent with their natural habits of growth. As the size of the Evicb. 

 is, so should the roughness of the peat earth be with which it is potted. Ericas, 

 to succeed fully exposed to the influence of the weather, should be potted 

 some time before they are set out. A partial shade is necessary, and particu- 

 larly so if the pots are exposed to the sun's rays ; as I have noticed that, in 

 proportion to the number of hot days, so were the sickly appearances of the 



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