GENERAL TREATMENT IN AUTUMN AND WINTER. 297 



tlie Moist Stove, for their winter's treatment. In regard to both, ventilation 

 must be gradually lessened, shutting up early in the afternoon, and thereby 

 inclosing as much air heated by the solar rays as will maintain the ne- 

 cessary temperature till morning. This may be sufficient till the second 

 or third week in the month, when slight fires may become necessary, but 

 no positive data can be given on this head, as so much depends upon 

 the state of the weather. The Dry Stove, if the bottom heat be obtained 

 from fermentable matter, such as leaves, tan, &c., should now be regulated 

 by removing a portion of that which has been in a state of fermentation 

 since this time twelvemonth, and by supplying its place with fresh 

 material, to keep up the necessary heat for another season. The flues 

 should be cleared, all necessary repairs of glass, &c., executed, and the 

 house thoroughly cleaned, so as to be in a fit state for the winter. In 

 the Moist Stove the same measures of cleaning, repairing, &c., should be 

 also completed. In both, the supply of water should be lessened, both at 

 the roots and over the tops of the plants, particularly at the former, as 

 plants plunged in any medium always require much less water than 

 those that are exposed to the action of the atmosphere on all sides; sickly 

 plants should also have much less of that element than those that are in 

 perfect health. 



By the latter end of September, slight fires may be necessary, particu- 

 larly in the Dry Stove ; in the other, the beginning of October will be soon 

 enough. By recommending artificial heat so early, we must be understood 

 to mean only in a very Hmited degree, for certainly the excess of this 

 element, and more particularly during autumn and early winter, is pro- 

 ductive of much mischief in most collections ; and a deficiency of it in 

 February, March, and April, when it is most wanted, is also a fault 

 generally fallen into. All plants, from whatever quarter of the globe they 

 may come, experience a summer and a winter, or some atmospheric 

 change equivalent thereto, during which their functions become torpid to 

 a certain extent, and this may be safely termed their season of rest. In 

 cultivation, something of the same kind should be imitated, and no period 

 is so natural in our northern latitudes as those dark and cheerless months 

 between November and the middle^ of February. It is contrary to reason 

 and common sense to expect a plant to continue in a state of uninterrupted 

 excitement, and it is also equally erroneous to force a plant, by dint of 

 artificial heat, to grow during the darkest months we have. Our practice 

 is to let tropical plants rest dming November, December, and January, 

 and excite them gradually in February, March, and April. The success 

 of this process vnll be obvious. Air should be admitted on all mild days, 



