361 
JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
water is given to the roots, but the leaves are constantly syringed. 
Many species, in spite of this, lose their leaves, but early iiis 
February the axillary buds begin to swell, and by the end of 
March the plants are in full leaf again. The pots are then 
watered freely, and root action soon begins to take place. New 
shoots are seen to pierce the soil. Not a plant has been lost. 
By the middle of May, watching the weather, we begin harden- 
ing off our Bamboos just as we should Geraniums or bedding- 
out plants, and at the end of the month or in the first days of 
June they are planted out in their permanent homes. In taking- 
them out of their pots great care must again be taken not to 
tamper with the roots. They are as brittle as glass, and any 
interference with them is in the highest degree dangerous. The 
roots, however pot-bound the plants may appear, will soon find 
their way about. If any roots should have come out through the- 
hole at the bottom of the pot, we break the pot rather than 
attempt to pull them through. The beds should be double-dug,, 
and consist of as rich good loam as can be found. Mulch with 
cow-manure and tnck them up snugly in a blanket of dead 
leaves or straw to prevent evaporation in summer and save the 
rhizomes from frost in winter. If it be feasible, the newly 
planted Bamboos should be watered and syringed in dry weather,, 
but the rains of heaven are what they like best. It is a good 
plan to surround the new beds with wire-netting ; this has the 
double effect of keeping out rabbits and pheasants, which do 
harm by scratching round the roots in the newly turned-up soil 
and keeping in the dead leaves. In a year or two, when the 
plants shall have been thoroughly established, the wire-nettin^L^ 
may be removed and the Bamboos left to take care of themselves. 
It is not too much to say that yearlings treated in this way 
are healthier, brighter, and give better promise of growing into 
good favour than others of the same species which have been 
wrestling with adversity for four years. The present condition 
of my last-arrived plants, as compared with their elder brethren, 
furnishes a good object-lesson. 
The species which have so far offered the sturdiest resistance 
to the rough liandling which they have received from our climate 
are, amongst tlic taller and more graceful liamboos, rhyllostachysx 
nigra with its congeners Pliylloslachys nigrojMiictata and Fhyllo- 
siachys Boryana, the lovely Phyllostachys Hcnonis and the rare 
