OLEANDER CULTURE. 



531 



sensitive to cold, the plants should be taken under cover 

 once more about the 15th of October, where they must 

 remain until the 10th of May, during which time they 

 ought not to be watered more than three or four times 

 every month. In France the Oleander tree is attacked by 

 a parasite called the Chermes nerii, which does it a great 

 deal of injury. While in the greenhouse no pains should 

 be spared to deliver it from its enemy by means of a stiff 

 dry brush. The mischief caused by this insect will often 

 kill the tree ; prompt means must therefore be taken to free 

 the trees from this pest as soon as it makes its appearance. 

 If, in spite of all your care, the Chermes still keeps up its 

 depredations, you must not hesitate to prune out all the old 

 wood that is attacked. By this means the evil may be 

 entirely remedied, a new set of shoots appearing and bearing 

 flowers the following year.^^ 



The preceding details refer exclusively to the treatment 

 of the larger specimens. The pretty little free-blooming 

 Oleanders are grown about Paris in pots, five or six inches 

 in diameter, in sandy soil, and these pots they very soon 

 fill with roots. They are plunged all the summer in the 

 open ground, and grown at all other seasons near the glass 

 in those low houses so much in vogue in Parisian nurseries 

 and gardens. They flower profusely, and receive the 

 same treatment as Orange trees, as regards housing in 

 winter. They are allowed to rise with an undivided stem 

 for about four inches, and then break ofl" into several 

 branches. There should be no difiiculty in growing them 

 wherever there is a sunny shelf in the greenhouse, by 

 securing a clean, while discouraging a soft or luxuriant 

 growth, giving them a rather dry rest in winter, and 

 abundant water and light in summer. In winter any cool 

 house will do to store them, or even a shed. 



Culture of the Orange. — In the following account of 

 the cultivation of the Orange by Mr. H. Jamin fils, the 

 son of the most successful cultivator of it in Paris, it will 

 be clearly seen w^hy and how we fail, and why a person 

 with an old coach-house or any other rough structure with 

 a few sashes or windows on its north side may grow hand- 



M M 2 



