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CTJLTUEE OF THE CAMELLIA. 
it was to combine all the most beautiful and favourite varieties of flowers and fruits with 
leaves of different kinds, so as to blend their forms and colours, and mingle their several 
fragrances together in the most attractive and agreeable manner. In Athens there was a 
market where these floral manufactures were carried on, and where they were also sold. 
To this spot resorted the opulent and luxurious of Athens, either for the purpose of 
purchasing garlands wherewith to win the partial smile of beauty, or to lounge away an 
unoccupied hour. 
We shall next proceed to consider the employment of flowers as offerings or as 
ornaments to certain of the deities of Greece and Rome, and for adorning their temples, 
altars, and statues, and conclude by describing the occasions of either public or private 
festivity on which flowers were most frequently introduced. 
CULTURE OF THE CAMELLIA. 
By Mr. Errington, Oulton Park, 
^ HO does not admire a well-grown and well-blossomed Camellia, with its glossy dark-green 
leaves, and bold-petalled, exuberant-looking flowers? 
There are peculiarities about this charming plant which mark it out above most other 
flowers ; and it seems to bid fair to be as enduring as to its popularity as the Geranium 
or the Rose. 
For although our continental neighbours have poured their thousands and tens of 
thousands of Camellias into the British market ; and although the Camellia has been 
planted against walls out of doors, in all quarters, made to form extensive undergrowths 
in woods and plantations, and even bedecked the cobbler s stall, yet nobody thinks a well- 
bloomed Camellia common-place in character, or beneath their notice. 
For enlivening the dreary winter months, we know nothing equal to it, provided its 
culture for that period is done justice to. How to do that, according to my opinion, shall 
form the groundwork of my present observations. 
In order to render my remarks familiar to the amateur, to whom principally I opine 
they will be useful, I must first premise that, for practical purposes, the culture of the 
Camellia, a twelvemonth round, divides itself into five periods ; each of which, under a 
systematic course of culture, should, according to my notions, be recognised by all good 
cultivators as distinct in character ; although, it may be, some of the features of management, 
at first sight, appear identical with those of another section. 
The five periods, then, I would entitle as follows : — 
1st period, forcing into wood. 
2nd do. formation of flower-buds. 
3rd do. maturation of flower-buds. 
4th do. development of blossoms. 
5th do. rest, necessary to the first period. 
First Period. — Forcing into wood. 
It was long before the true bearing of the policy as to its connection with successful 
winter flowering was understood or appreciated. Indeed, I am not assured that all our 
Camellia growers yet thoroughly recognise its importance. Be that as it may, with me it 
is the " keystone," and I think that I can show a winter-house of Camellias, from this 
period until March, against any competitor ; not for extent, certainly, but for glossy, 
dark luxuriance, and the vast amount of well-fed blossom buds, which appear at first sight 
like a profuse crop of nuts ; the leaves, too, being so very dark, as fairly to shame the 
most healthy Portugal Laurel. I name this merely to induce the reader to place some 
confidence in the mode of culture I am about to explain. 
For the successful culture of the Camellia for winter flowering, it is absolutely essential 
