THE PRACTICAL GARDENER. 



and if persevered in, will keep them under. The red-spider 

 is easily subdued by brushing the Hues over, when heated, 

 with a mixture of flour of sulphur and water ; but if the 

 cnj^ine or garden-syringe has been sufKciently used, there will 

 be little fear of its making its appearance. The aphides, or 

 green fly, as well as the thrips, are destroyed by the well- 

 known remedy of tobacco-fumigation, which should be had 

 recourse to whenever it makes its appearance. 



SHIFTING TROPICAL PLANTS. 



Cultivators, for the most part, begin a general shifting or 

 re-potting of their stove-plants about the middle or end of 

 April. However convenient the practice of a general shifting 

 may be, still it is subject to many objections. All plants do 

 not require to be annually shifted, but are found to flower 

 better when that operation is less frequently adopted. All 

 plants, even in the same house, do not begin to vegetate at the 

 same season ; and, as the time when they begin to grow ap- 

 } tears the most natural to supply them with fresh food, it 

 therefore follows that they should be shifted only as they 

 attain that state. However, having made these observations, 

 wc may detail the process for brevity's sake under this general 

 head, and, according to our usual method, give the essence of 

 the practice of others, as well as that of our own. On this 

 subject, Gushing observes, Being fully j)repared, let a part 

 of them be taken to the potting-shed together, that they may 

 be no longer than necessary out of the stove : and, while these 

 are shifting, the operation of turning the tan-beds should be 

 proceeded with but there are few modern cultivators who 

 now use tan, as we have already noticed. After detailing this 

 process, which difters nothing in principle Irora what we have 

 explained in the pine-stoves, {sec Forcing Garden,) he pro- 

 ceeds, " In shifting the plant, the greatest nicety should be 

 used not to injure the roots: because, if the roots, fi'om a 

 multiplicity of wounds, (which are more frequently lacerated 

 ihaii cleanly cut,) once become cankered, or contaminated in 

 anv manner, th? branches must also be expected to sufler and 



