C 124] 



XX. On the Cultivation of Alstromerias. In a Letter to the 

 Secretary. By Mr. W. Scott, Gardener to Charles Bar- 

 clay, Esq. M.P. F.H.S. 



Read February 2, 1836. 



Sir, Bury Hill, December 5, 1835. 



A s the Alstromerias exhibited by Mr. Barclay, on the 7th of 

 June 1834, at the Gardens at Chiswick, were so generally admired 

 that the Society's Large Silver Medal was awarded for them, I 

 trust a description of my mode of treating them, may not be unac- 

 ceptable to the Members. When I first came to live at Bury Hill, 

 in April, 1831, I found several varieties in small pots of the size 

 generally termed sixties, which were suffering from being kept 

 too moist, and Alstromeria Tricolor or Flos Martini, and Pul- 

 chella or Simsii, were planted in the border in front of the Stove. 

 Being very partial to the genus although I had never seen any of 

 the varieties before except Ligtu and Pelegrina, I began imme- 

 diately to turn my attention towards them. Being well aware, from 

 what I had seen of the two kinds with which I was acquainted, 

 that they require rest for a few months in the course of the season, 

 I removed all the plants I could find, (which as well as I can 

 recollect were Hookeri, Pulchella, Pallida, Pelegrina, Acutifolia, 

 Pelegrina alba, Psittacina, Edulis, Ligtu, and a variety from Mr. 

 Nuttall, raised by him from Peruvian seeds, and which had never 

 flowered here,) to a small pit in front of the Pine Stove, giving 

 them no water till the earth about their roots got quite dry; 

 as soon as they began to recover, I potted them in the size called 

 forty-eights, and kept them then on a shelf against the back wall 

 of the Greenhouse, about three feet from the top-lights; and 

 although I lost Hookeri, Pelegrina alba, and edulis, T had the 



