58 
CULTURE OF THE JOLLIFIA AFRICANA. 
those of wood, and utterly useless as fuel, but exceedingly valuable in heavy, or inert, 
peaty soils destitute of lime. 
We do not pretend, in this place, to enter, chemically, upon the constituents of 
coals; it will suffice to say, that where white ashes prevail, and if these effervesce 
and dissolve when tested with a dilute muriatic acid, chalk is present. In cases 
where the coals leave a reddish or brown ash, much iron and siliceous earth are pre- 
sent. Such ash is produced by the coals about Bath, Radstock, and other districts 
of the west of England. These red ashes are inert, but become useful to heavy and 
peaty soils ; they are worthless as fuel. 
Wood, where it abounds, and can be obtained at little expense, yields, if large 
logs be burnt, a very intense heat, and for day-fires may be employed with the 
black ashes of sea-coals very economically ; and the results of the combustion are 
an admirable manure in stiff loams, for strawberries, raspberries, asparagus beds, &c. ; 
but wood alone is fugacious, and used with sea-coal drives the fire on at a gallop, 
furnishing in fact a sort of oxy-hydrogen blowpipe, which produces the more rapid 
and wasteful expenditure of both materials. 
These hasty observations we have put together, as leaders to future remarks 
which may apply more fully to the minutiae of the subject ; at present, we leave it, 
observing merely that sea-coal ought to be used alone, or with its ashes and small 
cinders ; that ivood ought always to be tempered by sea-coal, sifted ashes where 
these can be obtained, or with the moistened slack or dust of inland pit-coal, which 
never solders, and can scarcely be made to burn alone ; and that all ashes which con- 
tain alkaline, or chalky salts, are excellent manures, and ought, to the slightest par- 
ticles, to be preserved for the use of the garden or the farm. They form the very best 
meliorater of heavy loams, and their extensive use tends much to economise the 
outlay of the forcing departments. 
CULTURE OF THE JOLLIFIA AFRICANA. 
This fine climbing stove plant is a native of Zanzibar, where it will climb 
thirty or forty feet; it is also called Telfairia pedata, 2inA Feuillea pedata. The 
best soil in which to grow it, is light sandy loam, without any mixture of dung, 
or it would grow too rampant and strong, and would scarcely ever flowei^. 
As the plant grows and spreads, cut the branches well in for several times, until 
the laterals begin to show flower, and by the end of July or beginning of August 
the flowers will be expanded. 
Cuttings of the laterals or from the extreme ends of the branches, when struck, 
will come into flower whilst the plants are quite small. 
When the cuttings are separated, plant them in a pot of light soil, cover them 
with a glass, and plunge the pot in a cucumber frame, where they will receive a 
good heat, and they will root in little more than a week. 
When rooted, pot them off into small pots, replace them in the frame until they 
have begun to grow, afterward remove them to the stove and treat them as old 
plants, and they will usually flower in a month after being potted off. 
