SUCCULENT PLANTS. 227 
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tlon being needful to discover whether it is really or simply superficially dry, and 
water is lurking beneath its surface. 
But whatever may be said of sphagnum with regard to safety, and as a means 
of inducing a moderate degree of perfection, it is certain that the rich soil made use 
of in a few gardens, brings the stems of the class of Cactaceee now beneath our 
notice to a state of luxuriance far surpassing that usually attained. The soil in 
question consists of fresh loam, taken from a meadow about a year before it is 
required, and mixed with finely-broken stone or brick-rubbish, well-pulverized leaf- 
mould, or manure, and silver sand. Of these, the former should be in the propor- 
tion of two-thirds, and the others in nearly equal quantities. 
In addition to the necessity for selecting a medium for the sustentation of the 
roots through which water will easily pass, the description of receptacle adopted 
in potting, appears to us to demand more attention that it commonly receives. 
For plants to which aridity is so serviceable in the winter, and humidity so 
prejudicial or fatal, it might be supposed that the gardeners ingenuity would be 
exerted to devise a method of forming pots or baskets which would effectively 
obviate any undue accumulation of fluids. As far as our knowledge extends, this 
very simple operation has never been carried out : our suggestion will, therefore, 
we trust, not be without its value. We desire to see pots for Cacti manufactured 
in the way in which those for Orchidaceee are occasionally made, with numerous 
and large perforations in the sides and bottom, for the escape, either by evaporation 
or more speedily, of such liquid as would otherwise settle in the soil. Wooden or 
wire baskets, with meshes of from one to two inches square, would be still more 
useful, and if some of the most tender and dubious sorts were hung in these from 
any elevation in the house, the probability of the drainage being effectual would 
amount to an almost absolute certainty. 
As to the temperature in which the various species comprehended in the present 
article ought to be kept, it may be said that, with the exception of three or four 
months in the year, they can scarcely be treated too roughly in this respect. This 
class of plants flower principally in the spring season, at which time we will pre- 
sume they are standing in a house of which the heat is not higher than that of an 
ordinary greenhouse. After their flowers have faded, the growing*" stage begins ; 
and just at the period between those epochs, they should be repotted into the 
compost before recommended, using pots one size larger where the roots have 
reached the edges, and replacing them in the old ones in any other case. Frequent 
syringing in a most warm atmosphere may succeed this process, and the plants 
must be retained in a high state of excitation till their developments are matured, 
when the extra heat should be gradually withdrawn from the house, the moisture 
diminished, and the specimens reduced to positive torpidity. If it be more conve- 
nient to place them in hotbed frames for the summer, nothing will be so genial as 
the heat from fermenting manure or bark, and they can be managed exactly as the 
kinds treated of in a former paper, save that a rather less heat is requisite. 
