SUCCULENT PLANTS. 
207 
dampness incident to the season. It therefore happens that specimens imported to 
this country which can be induced to grow, make their accretions of a diminutive 
size compared with the natural ones, and always leave a deep indentation between 
each year s developments, to the manifest disfigurement of the plant. 
Without any exaggeration, then, it may be affirmed, that of the plants brought 
to Britain from their native regions, and there grown in the manner common to 
our cultivators, barely one can be met with in which the beautiful perfection of out- 
line which they naturally exhibit is thoroughly preserved. 
By adopting the system which observation would enjoin, this defect can be at 
once avoided, and a healthy verdure realized, which is the more admirable from 
contrast with the sickly yellowish objects that result from improper management. 
In Germany, France, and other countries on the Continent, where the culture of 
Cactacese is conducted in a most superior way, and the plants present an appearance 
infinitely preferable to that ordinarily observable in British collections, the example 
of nature has been scrupulously followed. As the Cacti at Chatsworth have been 
treated after the same plan for nearly two years with the most gratifying success, 
it will be well to give some of the details. 
About the end of May or the beginning of June, when the time for Cacti to 
commence growing arrives, which will be easily obvious to a practised eye, one or 
more hotbeds, according to the extent of the collection, composed of fresh stable 
manure, are prepared in the frame ground ; and after the rank steam has escaped, 
and the heat is a little moderated, the newly-potted plants are transferred thereto. 
A temperature of from 90° to 95" Fahrenheit is then kept up, by the application 
of an exterior coating of new manure when needful, till towards the end of August, 
at which time the year's increase will be nearly completed. The change in the 
colour of the spines, and likewise in the whole aspect of the plant, will indicate 
the period at which growth ceases, and determine the adoption of measures for the 
gradual subsidence of the heat. 
Throughout the era thus defined, besides the vapour which arises from the 
fermenting manure, the plants are diurnally syringed at three o"* clock in the after- 
noon, and a shading is immediately placed over the frame till the evening. The 
ostensible object of syringing them so early in the afternoon is to avoid the 
necessity of covering them with mats at night, as the vapour it occasions is 
dispersed before night-fall. It is injudicious to water any plants that are in so 
tender a state too late in the evening, because the evaporation which follows causes 
a degree of cold that may produce a hurtful check. 
On the temperature in the frame falling to 60^, which it should be permitted to 
do by slow gradations, the plants will be ready for moving back to the succulent 
house, and a wholly different method of treatment must be entered upon. The 
epoch of excitation being entirely past, that of dormancy begins. The house 
should therefore be kept cool, air should be admitted liberally, or the lights at 
