GENERAL TREATMENT. 



185 



rustling winds are the exercise of plants ; and humidity and water are at 

 least the vehicles which convey their food ; and warmth the medium 

 which adapts them to receive it in a salutary way ; although the degree 

 of warmth actually requisite is as different for the different species as the 

 different chmates over which the Creator has been pleased to distribute 

 them, — by no means at random, but all in hanuoniously beautiful order. 

 And those which it has pleased their great Architect to place in equinoctial 

 latitudes appear to be more adapted to the reception of nutriment above 

 ground, by absoi-ption from the air, in the dewy places of their nativity, 

 than those whose absorbing orifices are less capaciously expanded in more 

 temperate countries ; or in those still more chilly regions which approach 

 the confines of perpetual snow. There the great business of nutrition 

 appears to be almost wholly from the root. And hence, perhaps, the 

 impatience which Alpine plants evince to heat, which actually exhausts 

 and overpowers them. 



' Jehovah ! in sapientia ea fecisti.* " 



GENERAL TREATMENT WHEN OUT OF DOORS. 



All the strong-growing shrubby Mesembryanthema, CrassulcB, Aloes, 

 Setnperviva, &c.,,' are benefited by being placed out of the house from 

 the beginning of June tUl the middle of September. They should be 

 placed on a floor of boards, pavement, or hard- rolled gravel, and 

 in a situation as much exposed to the fidl sun as possible ; and if it 

 can be so arranged conveniently, an awning should be placed over 

 them in times of continued rain : they would derive benefit from such 

 protection. 



The more common of the genus Mesemhryanthemum may be planted 

 out in June, upon a warm, dry border, where they will flower beautifully 

 all the summer, and some of them will stand the winter. Cuttings of such 

 sorts should, however, be tak,en off in spring, from which a supply of young 

 plants will be obtained to take their place in the Succident house in Sep- 

 tember, when the collection is taken into the house. 



The hybrid and other free-flowering Cactece, when done flowering, should 

 be taken out, and for a few days placed in an open shed or pit, where 

 they can be partially shaded from the full sun ; afterv\'ards they should be 

 placed in an exposed situation, similar to that chosen for the rest of the 

 collection. Here they will remain during summer, by the end of which 



