PRACTICAL HINTS ON A FEW SELECT CLIMBING STOVE PLANTS. 105 
Sposit of flocks in all the glasses, with a manifest loss of colour in the floating 
quids. If, instead of applying lime-water to fluid humates of ammonia, a portion of 
kch of the solid humous earths be rubbed in a mortar with some cream of lime, no 
dour will be extracted, even by adding boiling water. 
It thus appears that lime exerts a superior affinity upon humic acid , fixing it 
i an insoluble humate of lime : it likewise attracts it from every other known 
kaline base. 
The inferences to be drawn from the above experiment are these. All brown 
ated liquid manures contain humates of an alkaline base : these are doubtful, if 
)t dangerous applications, and lime is a remedial antidote. 
' If a weak, but perfectly clear solution of guano be occasionally employed, great 
Feet has been produced : but then there remains little or no colour visible ; there- 
1 re it contains no humate, but its virtue resides wholly in the soluble salts above 
mmerated. 
Dry manures applied to the soil do not yield brown extracts to the moisture 
! lerein ; and raw sap is always colourless : hence we conclude that brown liquid 
1 anures are in every case to be employed with the utmost circumspection ; and that 
ie humic acid , so long vaunted as an aliment, is in fact a poison, and constitutes 
le sterilising agent of peat, bogs, and barren turbaries. 
PRACTICAL HINTS ON THE MANAGEMENT OE A FEW 
SELECT CLIMBING STOVE PLANTS. 
( Continued from page 89.) 
* 
Since our last hints on this subject were committed to paper, we have had an 
1 )portunity of conversing with some of the first plant cultivators in the country, and 
1 eliciting from several of the principal contributors to the metropolitan exhibitions 
ieir opinions as to the correctness of our views and practice with regard to training, 
id it is gratifying to know that by those most competent of judging, they were 
iproved of. We therefore feel additional interest in pressing them upon the 
tention of our amateur friends, being convinced that if correctly carried out success 
! ill most assuredly crown their wishes. 
In our remarks upon AUamanda cathartica and grandifiora we omitted to state 
tat the blooming branches may be multiplied four-fold by stopping some of the 
rongest shoots, when they are about fifteen or eighteen inches long. About one 
iird of the shoot must be removed, and this will induce the plant to produce four 
teral branches, and hence you will procure four spikes instead of one of bloom, 
his practice, however, must only be adopted with those plants intended for autumn 
ooming, as, if carried out in the spring, it will be found difficult to get the plants into 
VOL. xiv. — no. CLXI. 
p 
