30 



PLANTS FOR WINDOW GARDENING. 



ber to have met in regard to choice of soil. We give them 

 entire for the benefit of our readers : — 



" Heaths, like the azalea and rhododendron, make very 

 small, hair-like roots ; and where these latter are growing 

 naturally, will be found a good locality to collect soil for 

 the artificial cultivation of the former. This soil will be 

 found full of decaying organic matter. Take up a handful 

 of it, and you will find a mass of thickly grown, fine fibre, 

 feeling like a bunch of moss. Examine it, and you will see 

 that it is chiefly composed of a black debris of leaves and 

 sticks, thickly interwoven with the roots of surrounding 

 vegetation. An inch or two only of the surface shoul3 

 be taken ; all below that is generally inferior, the organis 

 matter in it being too much decomposed. 



" Where this deposit cannot be obtained, a good substitute 

 will be found in turves from old pasture, cut thin, collected 

 in dry weather, and piled in a heap two or three months 

 before using, so that the vegetation in it may be slightly 

 decomposed. Both in its chemical and mechanical prop- 

 erties such a soil is nearly all that can be wished. In pre- 

 paring it, however, it is better to chop it up rather fine, 

 securing a proper mechanical texture by the admixture of 

 coarse sand, broken charcoal, or even a few pebbles, or 



