180 
ON THE CULTIVATION OF SOME OF THE PLANTS 
low situations than they do on the open plain, and hence they ought never 
to have been treated as dry stove plants, but during the growing season, should 
have been kept in a situation where, while they had a free circulation of air, the 
atmosphere was at all times in a comparatively moist or saturated state. In 
this country, during the time they are making their growth, no situation suits 
them so well as that of a good dung-pit or frame, where, with a gentle bottom heat 
and a free admission of air both night and day, they grow in a most satisfactory 
manner. Indeed, after all that has been written about the different systems of 
hot- water and hot-air heating, not even excepting that modern discovery yclept 
" Polmaise," which modern theorists and would-be philosophers pronounce the ne 
plus ultra of perfection as a means of heating for horticultural purposes, we have 
yet to discover a plan which is superior to the pristine dung-bed or pit, and by 
means of which so many plants can be grown to such perfection as they can by its 
influence. Go to any of our first-class cultivators, even those who have all the 
appliances of hot water and " Polmaise " to boot, and ask them the best means of 
heating a pit for plant-growing, and they will recommend the old dung-lining; 
inquire the best place to recover a sickly plant, and they will reply — the dung-pit ; 
thus proving that after all the dung-pit, when properly managed, is the best place 
in which to manufacture first-class productions of either plants or fruit. 
We do not say that good plants may not be grown without dung-heat, as that 
would be contrary to fact ; but we do say that, however fine the plants produced 
without its aid may be, the same cultivator, by properly directing the influence of 
fermenting dung, would produce much finer things ; and so thoroughly convinced are 
we of this, that, notwithstanding the extra trouble, we should always recommend a 
pit and frame or two to be heated by dung, in which to perform some of the more 
delicate operations of plant cultivation. 
With these preliminary remarks we shall proceed to the cultivation, in full 
detail, of Ixora grandiflora, or coccinea as it is commonly called, and then offer 
such remarks on some of the best of other species as their proper treatment may 
render necessary. The Ixoras may all be propagated by cuttings of either the 
young or old wood, either of which will strike root readily in a close moist dung- 
heat of 70°; but when it can be procured, as in the case of cutting large speci- 
mens down, the old wood is to be preferred, making choice of those short, stubby, 
and comparatively stunted branches which have several joints crowded together, and 
which will produce five or six branches where a young shoot would only produce one 
or two. Cuttings of this kind have generally latent buds at the base or collar, which, 
after the plants are well established, throw shoots from beneath the soil, and there- 
fore make very dwarf and compact plants, just such as are required for converting 
into first-class specimens. The Ixoras may also be propagated by grafting, a 
practice pursued, especially among the Continental nurserymen, to increase new 
and expensive kinds ; but the plan is a bad one for the cultivator, inasmuch as he 
loses all chance of shoots from the base of the plant, the importance of which have 
