OPERATIONS FOR MAY. 
95 
be attached to the summit of the stem, as its erectness will not thus be interrupted, 
and the junction will, after a time, be almost imperceptible. Any mode of grafting 
may be adopted, and that in which the operator has had the greatest practice will 
certainly succeed best. After securing the graft with matting in the usual way, 
the whole surface of the matting is enveloped in a glutinous covering, composed of 
pitch, turpentine, bees-wax, and grease. With the exact proportions in which 
these should be compounded, every gardener must be familiar, and they form a 
substance quite impervious to air and moisture ; hence their utility. 
Plants thus grafted, are placed in a frame or house where a gentle bottom heat 
is kept, and covered with hand-glasses, which serve the twofold purpose of retain- 
ing a proper atmosphere around the plants, and of affording means whereby they 
may be shaded with facility. Not only those genera mentioned at the head of this 
article, but almost all other shrubs of that description, and also the rarer species of 
Pinus, and their allies, are propagated in this manner with extraordinary celerity 
and success ; and the revival of the application above mentioned, is found to be of 
the greatest possible service in preventing failures. 
OPERATIONS FOR MAY. 
As the most striking and important developments of vegetation occur in this 
celebrated vernal month, while the physiologist is conducting his inquiries into 
their character, the practical cultivator must evince his assiduity in affording that 
aid and encouragement by which alone they can be healthfully promoted and 
maintained. Heat and moisture — the latter for the solution of aliment, and the 
former for inducing the absorption of such sustenance — are now in extensive 
requisition by all plants. Nature will most probably duly provide these essentials 
for all that are under her immediate surveillance : but to those which pertain to 
other climes, and are here grown in an artificial condition, the care and attention 
of the gardener is necessary ordinately to supply these indispensable offices. 
Some hints were inserted in our Number for March with regard to the propriety 
of elevating the temperature of plant-houses as the season advances. To this sub- 
ject we may here recur ; since, during the present month, the adoption of such a 
practice is particularly desirable, at least with the denizens of the stove. There will 
now be little necessity for fire heat, except through the night, as the confinement 
of the house, combined with the influence of the sun, will be sufficient to create a 
due degree of temperature. It is important, however, that fires should be 
employed during the night ; otherwise plants will experience an injurious chill in 
the early part of the morning, before the solar beams are powerful enough to 
restore the heat dissipated by radiation. 
It will hereby be apparent that we deprecate the practice of admitting air to 
