16 THE FANTASTIC CLAN 



not looked upon matchless beauty nor sensed the sweetest 

 perfume, till you have been out there in the great alone, 

 where Beauty comes and fades and dies, and is born again 

 in the ceaseless tide of God's evolution of men and things, 

 in the great Eternity of Being. 



HOW TO GROW CACTI 



In general cacti like warm or hot sunny southern ex- 

 posures; they grow best in sandy, gravelly, or rocky loam 

 or clay soils, according to the habits of the species; they suc- 

 ceed best with good drainage, a moderate or limited rainfall 

 or a limited amount of moisture in the soil. They should 

 have occasional dry periods to harmonize growth with their 

 original desert habitats, and also all the summer heat pos- 

 sible. This produces the contracted growth characteristic 

 of cacti with all their desert beauty and symmetry of colors 

 and arrangement of spines, and their fine large showy flow- 

 ers. Cacti do best in regions of limited rainfall and max- 

 imum sunshine, blazing-hot summers, and mild winters where 

 the temperatures keep well above zero. 



The bad effects of heavy rainfall can be overcome largely 

 by including in the soil a large proportion of sand or gravel 

 or cobblestones and by growing the plants on ridges or raised 

 borders. The effects of fog and extreme humidity can be 

 corrected somewhat by growing them in dry conservatories. 

 Where the temperatures fall below the lowest temperatures 

 given in the section on "How to Grow" for each species, 

 cacti must be grown in warm greenhouses in winter and 

 preferably throughout the year — with the exception of the 

 hedgehog cacti, which rarely grow successfully in green- 

 houses. With the specific information given under the head- 

 ing "How to Grow" for each species, it is possible to grow 

 cacti successfully in the tropics and over a large part of the 



