234 FACTS, HINTS, AND EXPERIMENTS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF 
it can have all the supposed advantages of excessive light, and he will find that what 
we have said is perfectly true. Scores of other greenhouse plants might he men- 
tioned which ohey the same law, and until our collectors describe the exact position 
in which they find the plants, such as whether in light or shady situations, or damp, 
or dry, or high, or low, we shall continue to grope our way to success in the same 
state of happy ignorance. 
Of plants which grow in the most admirable and satisfactory manner during the 
winter season no stronger illustration can be adduced than that of the genus 
Pimelea. These plants will do more in three months during the dull weather of 
winter and early in spring than they can be made to do in six months at any other 
time of the year. Indeed, during the hot, dry weather of summer, it is almost 
impossible to induce them to make anything like healthy and vigorous progress, even 
though they be placed behind a north wall, and every endeavour be made to render 
the situation as suitable to them as possible, by sprinkling, shading, and bringing into 
play all the devices generally employed to generate a moist, healthy, and growing- 
atmosphere. These plants, especially the more delicate ones, such as P. rosea, 
Hendersonia, hispida, Sc., seem to hate a hot situation and an unclouded sky ; but, 
place them in a cool and rather damp pit, where, with a free interchange of air, they 
can, from the end of September to the return of spring, be kept at a temperature of 
about 40° to 45°, and where the atmosphere can be kept sufficiently moist, but not 
wet, and they will grow with vigour unknown to them in any other situation. The 
reason of this is, that these plants under powerful light produce flower-buds almost 
before they have made shoots half- an -inch long, and hence they cannot grow ; but 
place them under circumstances where the flowering principle is placed in abeyance, 
or excite them at a season when the sun's rays impinge upon our earth at an 
oblique angle and there is a want of bright light, — the growing principle is alone 
excited, and the result will be progress of a very satisfactory kind. Plants thus 
treated may be stopped five or six times in the course of the winter, and will each 
time produce abundance of vigorous shoots, but in the summer it is almost impossible 
to get them to produce two shoots where they will send forth six or eight at 
this season. 
This, I have no doubt, will appear a very singular doctrine to many, but more 
especially to that class of cultivators who would make plants rest during the winter, 
whether they are disposed to do so or not, merely because such treatment accords 
with their preconceived notions of what, theoretically, we are taught to consider 
right. Practice however tells us that general rules in gardening, as in every other 
branch of knowledge are subject to exceptions, and the observant cultivator who uses 
his eyes as well as his head, will require very little experience to discover that many 
plants which he has looked upon as difficult to cultivate under general rules will 
grow with great freedom if he assists them at the time when they appear most 
inclined to assist themselves. 
It will always be found that the most difficult plants to cultivate make an attempt 
