256 
SUCCULENT PLANTS. 
account the number of specimens that thus receive more water than they need, — 
the mischief caused by which can hardly be over-estimated, — a calamity of an 
equally serious character is entailed. 
Whoever has noticed the results of an excessively heavy fall of rain upon a 
piece of land, the superficial soil of which has been reduced by raking, and after- 
wards rendered compact by the action of a light roller, will be prepared, to witness 
the same consequences from heavy watering with a rose. Nor are they at all likely 
to be disappointed : for when a brisk wind or hot sun succeeds, by which the 
earth is speedily dried, the particles composing its surface being comminuted 
through the force of the rain, are formed into a hard crust which must crack and 
be broken up before it will again let moisture pass through it with facility. 
It is precisely thus, but to an enlarged extent, with the soil in pots. If watered 
by the heavy falling of large drops of fluid from the rose of a watering-pot, in such 
quick succession as to create a puddle, the subsequent influence of the sun, when 
it has its ordinary summer power, will literally bake it into a solid incrustation, 
through the fissures in and around which liquid can alone reach the roots of the 
plant. That this hardened earth is particularly injurious to succulents, since they 
have to be supplied very sparingly with water at certain periods, and that water 
is expected to pass to all their roots, when, in such a condition, it could at the 
uttermost merely reach the exterior ones, needs not to be more than hinted ; and 
the absolute necessity of applying water through the spout of a vessel placed close 
to the soil, or resting on the edge of the pot, will be strikingly obvious. 
The time for potting the Aloe class of succulents, is about the end of April or 
the beginning of May. They will then commence growing at once, and, for the 
most part, bloom towards the decline of summer or in early autumn ; after which 
the lights of the house in which they are growing may be taken off in the day 
(save when the weather is damp or rainy) for a month or six weeks, and finally 
closed for the winter at the commencement of October, or sooner or later as the 
season may dictate. For the smaller species of the first four genera indicated in 
this paper, it will be politic to pluck off the flower -spike of those whose inflorescence 
is insignificant, and which are interesting solely for the shape, colour, or disposition 
of their foliage, that the plant may not be exhausted to no purpose. 
Echeverias and Crassulas, the first comprising species which are natives of 
Mexico, but of such high districts as to thrive very well in our greenhouses, and 
the last including the genera Rochea, Kalosanthes, &c, flower usually in the late 
summer season, and can be appropriately managed in the way herein detailed. 
Mesembryanthema have recently had an entire essay devoted to them in this 
Magazine. If desired to be kept in the house, no directions for treatment can be 
more applicable than the foregoing; and whether they are cultivated as green- 
house plants, or annually turned into the open borders, or grown continuously on 
exposed rock work, the secret of having them, and the species of the genera 
Calandrinia and Portulaca, which are somewhat related in habit, in the greatest 
perfection, is to propagate them annually or biennially, and destroy the old stock. 
