54 
THE CULTURE OE THE ORANGE TREE. 
be a partition. If this wall be used at the 
back as a depository for hot stable dung 
daring the winter months, it would be found 
sufficient for all the purposes, whether the 
trees be used for their flowers only or for 
flowers and fruit. It is quite certain that the 
bloom is now an article of commerce, and at 
particular seasons brings much more than the 
value of an orange, so that where the cost is 
nothing but the glass and the use of the dung, 
such a contrivance would pay well even in 
a commercial view. It is the custom in 
France to thin the flowers, and leave on only 
a moderate quantity to bring fruit ; but there 
the flowers are used as preserves or for distil- 
lation ; here they are only valued as cut 
flowers for bouquets ; and although we have 
seen them made French fashion, with wires 
through the single pips of flowers, the 
bouquets thus formed are little better than 
bunches of artificial flowers. It is a con- 
temptible fashion, and such as the higher 
classes will discard, changing the fashion to 
half a dozen sprigs, or may-be a single sprig, 
instead of a mass patched up for an hour and 
hung on wires, like so many children's play- 
things. Here, therefore, it would be the 
bunches of bloom to thin, instead of the indi- 
vidual flowers in a bunch ; and this might be 
done sometimes to advantage, for the bunches 
are occasionally very numerous. Air may be 
given in mild weather, but not when the 
temperature out of doors is below 40°, and 
never in windy weather. Not more than one 
fruit should be allowed to swell on a bunch ; 
they should be thinned when they are about 
the size of a green gooseberry, to two, and 
directly it is seen which of them takes the 
lead, or promises to be the most handsome, 
the worst should be taken away. These trees 
will rarely require water ; the roots will seek 
for themselves the moisture required, but the 
sj'ringing once a-day will be beneficial, and 
they may be shaded during the mid-day sun, 
in the early months, by transparent cloth. 
In June there will be no artificial heat re- 
quired, so the dung may be removed, and it 
must be remembered that in the hard winter 
the glasses must be thickly matted, notwith- 
standing the heat imparted by the dung. Of 
course other contrivances may be used for 
warming walls, and it is scarcely worth enter- 
ing the field as the champion of any one sort 
of heating, now there are so many answering 
the same purpose. We have had oranges on 
a south wall without any artificial heat, but 
they required great attention in covering up, 
whenever there was an inclination to cold, 
and always double-matting at night, in the 
winter months. The trees grow vigorously 
when their roots are in the open ground, and 
the border has been made for them. About tAvo 
feet deep of the proper soil is required, and 
below that there should be a bottom of brick 
rubbish a foot thick. 
AS STANDARDS IN A CONSERVATORY. 
There is scarcely a subject in the British 
gardens so well adapted for a conservatory, as 
an orange tree ; and when they have been 
grown to the full size we have described, in 
the largest tubs, they should, if practicable, be 
turned out, but not unless there be ample 
room for the development of their natural un- 
restrained branches ; and be it remembered, 
they form noble objects, worthy of a house to 
themselves ; for they are, when at maturity, 
or approaching it, always beautiful ; they will 
exhibit fruit ripe and unripe, and bloom at 
the same time, and if the place be suited to 
them, be continually yielding fruit in per- 
fection ; and when we consider the general 
appearance of one of these trees in perfection, 
we think almost every thing might give place. 
An orange tree in the centre of a conservatory, 
is an ornament worthy of the very best asso- 
ciates, and forms a beautiful object among 
the noble flowers of the Camellia japonica,- the 
Hoveas, Azaleas, Rhododendrons, and other 
gay subjects. The only care required, is the 
occasional cutting of an ill- growing branch, 
the removal of barren wood, and the cutting 
out of any light thin spindly shoots, that now 
and then will come in the heart of the tree. 
RAISING FROM SEED, AND INARCHING. 
The objects to be attained in raising this 
tribe from seed are, first, to procure new va- 
rieties ; secondly, to provide stocks for graft- 
ing, budding, and inarching the known va- 
rieties upon. Choose the ripest fruits, and 
the best sorts ; make up a hot-bed as if for 
cucumbers or melons, in the spring of the 
year, and sow the seeds in compost such as we 
have recommended for plants, in a wide- 
mouthed pot, the seeds an inch or so apart. 
When they have come up and expanded their 
second pair of leaves, pot them singly, in 
pots size forty-eight of any of the potteries, 
and replace them in the hot-bed ; give an oc- 
casional watering, and proper air by tilting 
the glass a little behind. If the bed declines 
in heat, take away the outside linings, and 
renew them with hot stable dung ; as soon as 
the pots fill with roots, shift into others, size 
thirty-two, and during all the time, the plants 
must be shaded from the mid-day sun, but 
they must not be darkened. As the plants get 
