THE CULTURE OF COMMON PLANTS 



emulsion very efficacious. This emulsion is made in the 

 proportion of a tablespoon of oil to a pint of milk, the two 

 being put into a jar and thoroughly shaken until mixed to a 

 creamy consistency. A spraying with pure alcohol is recom- 

 mended by some growers for small and valuable plants. 



In garden-planting the matter of juxtaposition should 

 ever be a main consideration. Especially may the effect of 

 a cactus garden be ruined by overcrowding of specimens or 

 unsuitable surroundings. While great pleasure may be 

 found in the house or porch collection, or even in a distinct 

 "cactus corner" in the garden, yet surrounded by a merely 

 conventional method of gardening, the cactus is sure to look 

 decidedly out of place and its individual beauty to be lost. 



Plants well known in California and which seem to be in 

 "just the right set" to fraternize well with our eccentric 

 friends are the agaves, aloes, euphorbias, yuccas, and for 

 ground-work, the unfailing and multi-colored mesembryan- 

 themums. 



Of the agaves, perhaps the best known but none the less 

 useful because of its common appearance in California gar- 

 dens, is Agave americana, the "century plant," certainly a 

 misnomer, since this agave has a "go-as-you-please" way of 

 blooming and seems to take no account of the fact that it 

 takes a hundred years to make a century! Agave attenuate 

 has a beautiful slender trunk, and broad, glaucous, soft- 

 textured leaves. Agave ferox has red spines that make its 

 green leaves shine by contrast. Agave potatorum is of the 

 sort that is used in Mexico for making "pulque." Since there 



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