Importmice of Cleanliness. Charcoal. 



51 



hot water in a close place, for it will sometimes touch the 

 young and tender leaves and shoots. Beware of that. When 

 the plant has been stunted and starved, I have applied the 

 water as high as 154°, and the vermin came off like the 

 peelings of onions, and the plant acquired new life, and grew 

 afterwards amazingly; but if you should use the water at 150° 

 in the spring of the year, when the plants are growing freely, 

 and the foliage and the shoots are young and tender, more espe- 

 cially if the place where you use it should be close, and the 

 steam cannot get away quickly enough, the plant will be scalded. 

 On the other hand, if the plant be taken into a shed, or some 

 such place, or if you give the house in which it is a little air, 

 there is not the least danger of scalding, and the plant will 

 derive wonderful benefit from the syringing. I manage thus : 

 I get two bricks, lay them in such a manner as to support the 

 pot, and place it between them, the rim of the pot resting on the 

 two bricks, so as to admit of 

 the plant being raised or low- 

 ered in an oblique position 

 without touching the ground 

 (see Jig. 7.) : this will also 

 admit of turning the plant 

 round at pleasure, so as to 

 allow of syringing every part 

 of the plant, as well over the 

 surface of the leaves and 

 heads of flowers, as on the 

 untler side of then), so that 

 hot water may touch every 

 part of the plant except the 

 roots. Syringing answers bet- 

 ter, according to my own 

 practice, than pouring on the water from a watering-pot, 

 which would probably scald the plant, in the same manner as 

 dipping it in water would do. For instance, if you syringe 

 water at 150° heat against the back of your hand, it will 

 only give you a smarting twinge for a moment; but if you dip 

 the oilier hand into the same pot of water, it will scald it 

 severely. Practice will soon teach you, if you persevere. 



Ma^mre Water. — What is it? It is composed of sheep- 

 dung, cow-dung, soot, lime, and nitrate of soda, all mixed to- 

 gether, to be applied to the constitution of the plant as we see it 

 requires it. 



And now for Charcoal, that astonishing material, that purifier 

 of all things. 1 have proved the use of charcoal in some 

 thousands of instances. Did I not point it out to you when you 

 were here? I do not claim making the discovery, for I do not 



K 4 



Fig. 7. Mode of placinif Plants in Pots when they 

 are to be syringed with hot Water to kill Insects. 



