22 



THE PKACTICAL GARDENER. 



GENERAL CULTURE OF TROPICAL PLANTS. 



Having so far enlarged on the propagation of tropical plants, 

 we will now otter a few observations on their general culture. 



As the majority of tropical plants are of rapid growth natur- 

 ally, and rendered still more so by the close and high temper- 

 ature in which it is necessary always to confine them, in a state 

 of cultivation, it naturally follows that some are short lived, 

 and many more are drawn up in the course of two or three 

 years, so as to become naked at their bottom, and often very 

 unsightly. Repeated propagation is the principal object to be 

 had in view, so that as the older plants become either sickly, 

 ill grown, or too large for the space allotted to them, they may 

 be dispensed with, and their places supplied from the young 

 stock. There is, however, this objection to that rule, that if 

 the object of the cultivator be to have large and magnificent 

 specimens, care must be paid to cultivate fewer in number, so 

 as to afford sufficient room for them to extend themselves on all 

 sides ; and if sufficient room be allowed them in the pots or 

 tubs, and abundantly supplied with water, and suflScient tem- 

 perature kept up, most stove plants will attain a large size in a 

 short period. Large specimei:ks of these plants should be 

 allowed a house for themselves, and a smaller house should be 

 allotted for those of smaller growth. 



WINTER TREAMENT OF STOVE PLANTS IN GENERAL. — 

 TEMPERATURE. 



All plants are naturally subject, in a certain extent, to the 

 vicissitudes of winter, spring, and summer, it follows, therefore, 

 that, in a state of cultivation, something analagous sliould be 

 followed by the cultivator in imitation of those changes. To 

 keep tropical plants at a high temperature during winter, when 

 there is little sun-shine, is to excite their gi'owing principle at 

 a period when they should rather be at rest ; and where such a 

 practice is followed, the plants become drawn up weak and 

 leafless, in consequence of the perpetual, or we may say, in this 

 instance, unnatural, stimulus to excitement, which the applica- 

 tion of heat produces. It appears from practice and observa- 

 tion, that the temperature of the plant stove should be kept as 



