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On the Cultivation of Rare Plants. 



of St. Domingo, where it grows wild, climbing to the tops of 

 the highest trees ; and is easily preserved in our stoves, throw- 

 ing out one or more roots at every leaf, but as it seldom flowers 

 here, I would recommend the following treatment. Plant it 

 at one end of a low bark stove, the temperature of which 

 must be kept constantly hot and damp, never below 60 de- 

 grees of Fahrenheit, in the night, during winter. Let the 

 earth be fat loam, taken about an inch deep from the sur- 

 face, in some old wood : mix this with a few decayed leaves, 

 and small pieces of rotten sticks, either in a tub bored full 

 of holes, and sunk at the back corner of the bark pit ; or pale 

 off a space of two square feet for it, draining the bottom a 

 foot in depth very effectually, with hollow tiles and porous 

 stones. Select a healthy young plant to place in this earth ; 

 and, as soon as it pushes vigorously, divide the stem, by pinch- 

 ing off its top, into three or four principal branches, which 

 train backwards and forwards over that end of the bark-pit, 

 at two inches and a half distance from each other, on stout rods, 

 of a rough-barked elm, nailed firmly across. The roots, which 

 issue from the bottom of the stem or branches, must be suf- 

 fered to penetrate into the earth, where they will swell and 

 nourish the plant; but if those beyond attempt to strike 

 downwards, wind them gently along the elm rods, to which 

 they will soon cling by small fibres, like those of Ivy. When 

 the principal branches have extended to fifteen or twenty 

 feet in length, divide them again, by pinching their tops, as 

 you find it necessary, into about a dozen branches in all, 

 which must be left to flower, guiding them first horizontally, 

 and afterwards in every possible direction, upon smaller rods 

 of rough-barked Elm, stuck into the bark-pit, at various 



