SUCCULENT PLANTS. 
205 
procured. Such as are grafted in the stove secure a further advantage, which is, 
that whereas cuttings taken from them while in the open ground will not of them- 
selves form roots, those from plants that make their growth in a high temperature 
will usually strike with facility. 
To conclude, there are few shrubby plants but may, if desirable, be increased 
in this way. And the grand essentials to a prosperous issue, are an affinity in 
texture, age, size, mode of growth, and time of development in the species to be 
united, with seclusion from common air and excessive moisture, and a supply of an 
adequate degree of favourably humid heat. For where there is a striking differ- 
ence in the habitude of plants intended for grafting, although the process may seem 
to terminate satisfactorily, and the specimen may nourish for many years, there is 
always a probability that the superior part will suddenly decay, without giving the 
slightest indication of its approaching destruction, or the cause to which it is due. 
Most of the admirers of grafted Cacti have been the disconcerted witnesses of 
C. truncatus and others that were attached to stocks of Pereskia aculeata withering 
without any premonitory signs of disease ; and the evident reason for such an 
unexpected and lamentable result is the great disparity between the natures, 
systems, and structures of the plants brought together, 
SUCCULENT PLANTS. 
{Continued from p. 181.) 
At the close of our former article, we threw out some general hints respecting 
the kind of structure best adapted to the cultivation of succulents. We have no 
reason here to retract aught that was there advanced, where an extensive collection 
is to be provided for ; but we have since seen a house of a rather different character 
appropriated to this end, a brief notice of which will most likely be of service to 
those persons who have only convenience for growing a few species. 
The house in question consists of a back brick wall of about six feet high, with a 
dark roof, perhaps three feet broad, and lights from thence to a small front 
wall. These lights are on a very trifling slope, not two feet from the perpendicular, 
and there is a wooden stage directly underneath them, from the bottom to the 
summit, the frame of which has the same inclination, and the shelves are barely a 
foot from the glass. There is a path behind the stage to admit a person for water- 
ing and other purposes, but the visitor can examine the plants with the greatest 
readiness by walking along the front of the erection. 
Without stopping to enumerate the minuter advantages of this plan, it may be 
observed that there is a great saving of materials in the construction of the house ; 
that it requires scarcely any artificial heat, as mats can so easily be thrown over the 
glass ; that it allows ingress to a considerable quantity of light, the consequence of 
which is that we never saw plants in a more beautifully healthy condition than 
