296 THE PHILADELPHIA FLORIST [No. JO 



V natural principle of vegetable repose it can be turned to good account^. 

 No in the artificial way in which plants for the most part are kept in our c/ 

 7 plant structures. We can assist, hasten, retard, or complete the work 

 as circumstances may dictate; and seeing that this is the most favora- 

 ble condition for plants surviving unhurt the rigor and severity of 

 winter, the cultivator will at once perceive the importance of ob* 

 serving this, and allowing his plants to arrive at this stage before the 

 severity of winter overtakes them in a growing and succulent state ; 

 and moreover, they will require to be treated while in this condition 

 almost as if they were dead ; they require no stimulants whatever, 

 for if heat and water were to be administered at this season, a spring 

 time would be created in the house while there is little sun light, so 

 essential to their proper development. Though this neglect of a uni- 

 versal law, plants are not allowed the necessary rest^but are forced !o 

 dwindle on, for they cannot be said to grow, and are robbed of all 

 the material necessary to promote vigor, hence every expectation is 

 blasted, every hope frustrated through ignorance of a principle which 

 may be seen in full operation by all who choose to use their senses. 

 This is a common error among cultivators, they are anxious to antici- 

 pate, but in doing so they commit a fatal mistake; they are anxious to 

 speed, while they are doing all they can to impede ; however, all 

 plants do not require the same period or the same season of repose,, 

 yet the law is general and the exceptions must be corrected in prac- 

 tice. A good collection may contain plants from all quarters]of the 

 globe ; some may have been obtained from the recesses of the forest 

 where the sun's rays scarcely reach, others from the mountain side, 

 where a pure air, and a clear light prevails ; this points out to the in- 

 telligent cultivator the necessity of making himself acquainted with 

 all that pertains to his plants individually ; the country they come 

 from, their widest range of distribution in that country, all the various 

 elementary influences to which they are there subjected, the soil in 

 which they attain their greatest luxuriance both in flower and foliage ; 

 in a word, all the facts connected with their native habitat, becomes 

 very useful in one way or other. When this knowledge is attained, 

 cultivation becomes something more than the work of chance, it ranks 

 as one of the sciences; in fact it is only where thus fallowed out that 

 an intelligent mind derives from it that degree of pure pleasure which 

 it is so well fitted to afford, when success can be traced not to chance 

 but to skill and forethought. Our advice to every amateur is to pur- 

 chase some work on the physiology of plants and make himself mas- 

 ter of it, in all its details ; it is not a dry and uninteresting study, but 

 one richly fraught with pleasure, and moreover he will be constantly 

 seeing, in attending on his collection of plants, illustrations of what 

 \ he reads; he will as certainly see cause in this, as in other mat- 

 ters, he will learn to assist the efforts of nature rather than to ob- 

 struct her. cy 



$os?^ ^-Qm 



