ON THE INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE ON PLANTS. 
179 
hi this instance be left entirely empty, and care must be taken to provide holes in 
the bottom of the external pot for the escape of water. 
If the additional expense of the invention here noticed be objected to, it may 
be answered, that it is only recommended for those plants which require either a 
very large or an equally limited supply of water ; but there can be little doubt that 
a system which preserves plants from sudden destruction by drought or saturation 
with water, although at a trifling increase of original expenditure, will ultimately 
be found the wisest and most economical. 
REMARKS ON THE INFLUENCE OF CLIMATE ON PLANTS. 
ARTICLE IV.— THE INFLUENCE OF LIGHT — (continued) . 
Resuming the consideration of this interesting subject from the point at which 
we deferred it in our last number, our next proposal is to inquire generally into 
the degree of light necessary to cultivate the numerous species and varieties of 
Camellia in the artificial structures of this country, so as to flower them in the 
highest possible state of excellence, as well as to maintain the plants in a healthy 
and luxuriant condition. As we were before called upon when speaking of heaths, 
so are we again now, strongly to condemn the practice of growing a mixed collec- 
tion of plants in one house, as the ill effects of which it is productive are perhaps 
more fully exemplified in Camellias than in almost any other extensive tribe of 
plants. In nearly every collection of plants in which Camellias are cultivated, 
except when they are allowed a house to themselves, they are kept in the green- 
house or conservatory, and exposed to all the light which can be admitted by a 
glazed roof, and what is still worse, are frequently placed in the open air during 
the summer months, beneath the full blaze of a meridian sun. In such cases it is 
not surprising that they never attain that luxuriance of foliage which is one of their 
chief ornaments, and that their flowers are always of an inferior character. It 
would indeed be matter for wonder if these effects did not become manifest, as it is 
well known that Camellias delight in a shaded position, and one in which they are 
naturally, or can be artificially, screened and protected from the more violent rays 
of the sun. Since then it is a fact sufficiently and incontestably proved and estab- 
lished, that Camellias do not require a great degree of light, and indeed that the 
degree of light to which the usual inhabitants of our greenhouses are exposed is 
prejudicial and injurious to these plants, how is it "possible that any success can 
attend the system of management wherein their habits are not consulted, but the 
treatment pursued towards them is literally pernicious and detrimental ? If an 
individual were to advise any gardener or cultivator to allow his greenhouse or 
stove plants to remain exposed to the inclemency of the weather during a night of 
severe frost, lie would instantly scout such a proposition with deserved ridicule and 
