THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE 
119 
OUT-DOOR MANAGEMENT OF CAPE HEATHS. 
ROCESSES exhibited in the development of a shoot of 
|j any given plant, may, as a general rule, be advantage- 
fi ously studied under two heads— the elongating and 
HlggS developing process, and the maturing or solidifying 
" process. And still, assuming general principles, for 
exceptions must be allowed, in proportion as a plant has been 
liberally treated in the preceding season of growth, so will the 
development of healthy and vigorous shoots take place in the pre- 
sent one. Not so with the solidifying process. The present cir- 
cumstances are the only ones which can possibly affect that ; and 
no intelligent gardener will deny that on the maturity of the branch 
depends the quantity and quality of both flower and fruit, in any 
case in which either one or both may be desired. 
To enter into the physiological why and because of the matters 
here alluded to would, perhaps, be out of place, and extend this 
paper to an undue length. Not that I deem such an exposition 
would be useless or pedantic, for intercourse with gardeners, as a 
body, not individually, far from it, assures me that the general 
principles of the physiology of vegetable life are not so well under- 
stood as they ought to be. 
And considering how useful such knowledge becomes when 
employed as an auxiliary to sound experience, it cannot be too 
much urged upon all members of the calling. Operations which 
in practice can only be rewarded by successful results after a 
circuitous and, in many cases, uncortain route, may, by bringing 
a knowledge of physiology to bear upon the subject, be made a 
certainty by a much shorter and more certain route. 
What a good chart is to a traveller in a country comparatively 
unknown to him, a knowledge of vegetable physiology is to a 
gardener in the daily round of his operations. 
And as it often happens that to accommodate a large stock of 
plants room has to be economised by crowding, if the wood of the 
current season has not been fully matured, fearful ravages are 
occasioned by damp, and the plants are fully alive to every external 
circumstance which could possibly affect them, which if properly 
matured, they would have defied. It is a matter of question, when 
all circumstances are considered, as to the policy of exposing exotics, 
under pot culture, to the ever-varying influences of our climate in 
the summer months. But in the present state of horticultural 
buildings there is scarcely any alternative. 
As “much might be said on both sides,’’ and as the more preva- 
lent opinion and practice are in favour of summer exposure, I 
forbear agitating the question at present — a question, nevertheless, 
of paramount interest to gardeners generally. 
As the heath revels in a constantly moving and cool atmosphere, 
aud as existing houses appropriated to plant culture do not furnish 
the means of affording such requisites, when the sun has obtained a 
moderate altitude removing to the open air becomes necessary. 
April. 
