106 
ON CULTIVATING GARDENIA RADICANS AND FLORIDA. 
change in the condition of the atmosphere. Besides which, in an arid atmosphere 
it is almost impossible to protect these plants from the attacks of the red spider, to 
which they are extremely liable, and which, as is well known, prove injurious to 
them and all other plants. 
To preserve them from these destructive enemies, as well as to render them 
objects of ornament at all seasons of the year, by constantly maintaining their 
foliage in a healthy and luxuriant state, the following system of management which 
we saw practised in the collection of an eminent horticulturist some time since, 
will, we have no doubt, be found effectual. After the plants have been struck, 
according to the directions to which we have before alluded, and potted into sixty- 
sized pots in a compost comprised of one-third heath-mould, one-third turfy loam, 
and one-third white sand, which has been previously well incorporated, they should 
be placed as closely as possible to, or on the rim of, a water cistern, at the hottest 
end of the stove, in which situation they will receive all the evaporation arising 
from the water, which will prove highly beneficial to them, and cause them to grow 
most rapidly and luxuriantly. If they have been struck in the spring months, they 
should be slightly shaded on being first removed to this place, and will require a 
liberal supply of water ; but if propagation be deferred till the autumn, shading- 
will be wholly unnecessary, and water must be moderately and judiciously applied. 
We prefer the autumnal months for propagating these plants, because they will 
then be capable of producing flowers in the succeeding season. During the winter 
they will perhaps require shifting once or twice, which should be promptly attended 
to ; and at each shift the compost used should be progressively enriched, by dis- 
pensing with the greater part of the sand and substituting leaf-mould or well-rotted 
manure. As the spring advances and the plants become larger and stronger, they 
should be again shifted into pots of such a size as they may individually require ; 
and as the days lengthen, and the heat of the sun becomes more powerful and 
enduring, a number of pots should be placed in an inverted position in the bottom 
of the cistern before named, and on these the pots containing the subjects of this 
article should be stood, keeping just as much water in the cistern as will barely 
reach the bottom of the pots in which the plants are growing, but being careful not 
to immerse them in it. It may here be observed, that in no case should the water 
be allowed to rise above the level of the bottom of the pots in which the plants are 
kept, as scientific researches and investigations have shown that all plants discharge 
certain excrementitious fluids, which, if suffered to remain about the roots, will be 
productive of great injury to them, and of course by plunging the plants in water 
these rejections, although at first exuded into the water, would be again imbibed 
by the plants. Therefore, as we before observed, the pots containing the plants 
should never be immersed in the water, unless the cistern be occasionally emptied 
and filled with a fresh supply of water, in which case the above system would 
doubtless prove useful. The good effects produced upon the plants by subjecting 
them to this mode of treatment will soon become evident by their requiring another 
