THE PLOEAL WOULD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
118 
mens in one season. The situation it occupies in the house is one 
important point to be considered. If placed where a current of 
air passes over the foliage, it will dwindle and die. A quiet cool 
position is what it especially requmes ; and it should be partially 
shaded during bright sunshine. It will be found to luxuriate in the 
temperature of au ordinary conservatory, where the frost is merely 
kept out. I have known it to be exposed to nearly the freezing 
point without sustaining any injury whatever. The soil in which I 
have found the Luculia to thrive best is turfy loam, with an admix- 
ture of one-fifth leaf-mould, and one-fifth silver sand ; let the pot be 
well drained, and the soil used in a rather rough state. Few con- 
servatory plants are more ornamental than the Luculia, and if 
planted out where there is no draught, it will thrive and bloom in 
perfection every winter. 
COVERING AND SUMMER MANAGEMENT OF WALL 
FRUITS. 
BY A CORRESPONDENT. 
Y purpose in writing this article is to draw attention to 
the subject of covering fruit trees, and also to offer 
some suggestions as to the summer management of 
those, especially, which have missed a crop ; and such 
will, I fear, prove a fearful majority. For my own 
part, I have for years been an advocate of some kind of covering, 
have so repeatedly witnessed the benefits to be derived from it ; 
and it does appear an extraordinary thing that any man in his 
sound senses should object to even a mat being hung over his pet 
apricot on a frosty night, and, not to go to extremes in the argu- 
ment, say, with a thermometer eight or ten degrees below freezing 
point — by no means an unusual affair. 
But, says the non-protection advocate, “ I do not like covering, 
for it has a tendency to ‘draw ’the buds.” It may certainly do 
this when coverings of very close materials are used ; but, for my 
part, I have never seen anything worth recording in this way, and 
I have used covering extensively for at least twenty years. On the 
contrary, such things as thin canvas, spruce, fir boughs, etc., most 
decidedly retard the buds; for this reason I endeavour to get my 
trees covered at the end of February, drawing it off, if moveable, on 
all cold aud windy days, and keeping close covered on those which 
are sunny or exciting. 
My peaches are now in full blossom, or nearly so, and a finer 
sight in the peach or nectarine way I have never seen, and probably 
never shall see. The frost, to all appearance, does not seem to have 
affected them in the least. I need not inform the readers of the 
Floeal World that we do not possess a Devonshire climate in 
Cheshire ; but I may add that these remarks, concerning the 
April. ® 
