THE PRESERVATION OP HALF-HARDY PLANTS. 209 
mistake here. If grown in low shaded dells, such as have already been described, 
heath-mould is certainly the most congenial, for nothing can be more magnificent 
than the American plants at Mr. Waterer's nursery, Knapp Hill, where the bog- 
earth is yet from ten to twelve feet deep in some spots. The extraordinary 
luxuriance and fertility there attained, are, however, in part due to the lowness 
and comparative swampiness of the situation. The earth is perpetually filled with 
moisture, and, as an indication of the dampness of the atmosphere, most of the 
stems and branches of the plants were loaded with Mosses and Lichens. 
If it be presumed that an American plant will flourish as well with heath-soil, 
in a high, dry, and exposed situation, one or two experiments will soon convince 
of the contrary. Without the assistance of artificial watering, it would perish in 
hot summers ; and where the tribe is necessarily planted in such positions, they 
ought to have a strong loam mixed with the earth, to render it sufficiently retentive 
of water. We conclude, then, that these plants love to grow in heath-mould, 
seeing that they are most healthy in it, when other circumstances are favourable : 
but that they should have with it, a low, somewhat moist, sheltered, and triflingly 
shaded locality, or, wanting these conditions, be planted in a more nutritious and 
retentive earth. 
The following Number will contain the completion of this paper. 
THE PRESERVATION OF HALF-HARDY PLANTS 
THROUGH THE WINTER. 
Instances must have occurred to most people's experience, in which a few 
trite suggestions, timely given, have been of more value than hints whose intrinsic 
worth was infinitely greater, but which have been thrown out unseasonably. 
Perhaps, therefore, the remarks we are about to offer, though possessing but a 
small amount of novelty, will be useful to some of our readers on account of their 
appearing at a time when information of the sort is just beginning to be needed. 
The large demand for half-hardy plants in the present day, and their almost 
exclusive employment in the decoration of flower-gardens and parts of pleasure 
grounds, has elevated them into an importance which they only before had as 
greenhouse objects. And now that they are found to grow so well in the open 
ground during summer, immense quantities of them are cultivated for that purpose. 
Their summer tendance is, of course, very trifling, and it is the keeping them 
through the winter which alone occasions trouble and demands skill. 
There are numerous ways of managing them, each pursued in reference to the 
conveniences of the cultivator. Where pits and frames are abundant, and labour 
is not very highly estimated, young plants are struck from cuttings, throughout 
the autumn, in sufficient quantities to admit of some perishing, and yet of there 
VOL. IX. NO. CV. E E 
