211 
THE CULTIVATION OF BALSAM. 
by Dr. Jnmieson from the Quitinian Andes. 
The hardy kinds arc adapted for training 
against trellis work, fronts of houses, walls, 
arbours, &c. ; and all of them strike freely 
from euttings in sand, and under a bell glass. 
THE CULTIVATION OF BALSAM, 
UPON THE ONE-SHIFT SYSTEM OF POTTING. 
As I have heard a good deal said, and seen 
a good deal written, about the one-shift system, 
I should like to place the question in a proper 
light, and not let a good thing be confounded 
with a bad use of it. Now I maintain that, 
where you have room for it, the one-shift 
system is good for Balsams; and I grow a few 
upon that plan, though it is impossible in any 
limited space to grow many. I sow my seed in 
February, perhaps not more than a score seeds, 
and of course of the best kind I can hear of 
or procure. A thirty-two sized pot will hold 
these, and, the moment they are up, I keep 
them close to the light, to prevent their draAv- 
ing, which, according to my experience, is 
never got over ; because you never can make 
a plant that has been drawn in the seed-pot, 
so handsome as one that has not. When these 
few plants have four leaves, I procure number 
twelve pots enough to fill a two-light box, 
which I make up with dung-heat, and the 
wood-work of my frame is twelve inches in 
front and eighteen behind. In the centre of 
these pots I put two plants, with a bit of slate 
between them to prevent their roots from mat- 
ting into one another. These pots I place in 
the frame, which is put on four inches of soil 
above the dung. This enables me to sink the 
front row or two a little, and so keep the 
plant a very small distance from the glass ; 
and by propping the back ones I contrive to 
have them all the same distance. I give all 
the air I possibly can, consistently with the 
heat required ; and I cover them with trans- 
parent water-proof cloth, which I find keeps 
in a good deal more heat than much thicker 
stuff does when not water-proof. The object 
of this covering, too, is, that the plants shall 
never be in the dark. It also enables me to 
leave an opening for the escape of steam and 
excessive heat, which I do with a few round 
holes near the top of the back part, with plugs 
in them, which I can remove, and in the day- 
time frequently remove one or more, in 
preference to rifting the glass. Again, I in- 
variably shade them from the broiling sun, 
which is frequently very powerful in the early 
spring months ; this I do also with the 
transparent water-proof cloth, which I fancy 
repels the violent heat without reducing the 
light. Of course the growth is very rapid, 
and the pots have to be lowered, or the frame 
raised, very frequently. As they advance, I 
have to raise the box by putting bricks under 
it, and building up to it with thickly cut turfs, 
which form a nine or twelve-inch wall. The 
only safe way to do this, is to place the turfs 
close to the box, all round it ; so closely as to 
admit no air, and say a foot high; then choose 
the warmest part of the day, get one man to 
hold up the glass as high as he can, while you 
pidl up the front of the box, and put one or 
two bricks under in two places. Then go to 
the light, and slide it down enough to enable 
your assistants to raise up the back, and you 
to place bricks there ; — the turf must be well 
closed upon the wood of the box, so as to 
leave no vacancy for air; — and thus must you 
continue to raise the glass, until you remove 
them altogether into the house in -which you 
intend to complete them. I found that they 
grew very much larger than any of those 
which I grew in the ordinary way; and more 
than once even the large pots were matted. 
But I ought, perhaps, in its proper place, to 
have mentioned what I did about having two 
plants in a pot. I look a good deal to habit; 
and as soon as I could see which of the two 
plants was likely to be the better, I removed 
the other. If I wanted plants, I used them 
by potting them directly; if I did not, I threw 
them or gave them away; but there is a good 
deal in having a choice of two plants when 
only one is required. Twenty reasons might 
make us prefer one to another, and I never 
omit it now, because they can be put so close 
as to be not sufficiently out of the centre to 
be ugly; and the piece of slate between them 
enables you to draw out the one not wanted, 
without destroying a fibre of the other or of 
itself, and refilling the space with proper soil. 
I have had them by July so large, that, except 
at Mr. Cock's, cf Chiswick, I never saw any 
approach them, and mine were not so much 
drawn ; but I believe that, had I begun with 
four-sized pots instead of eight, the plants 
would have been much larger and finer. I 
judge so, because they were matted in the large 
pots as hard as you ever see the roots in small 
ones. I used liquid manure when they were 
coming into bloom; but, as this w r as perfectly 
a speculation, and I did not keep any upon 
plain watering, I cannot say what the effect 
was ; I have, therefore, proved that the one- 
shift system is good when a large rank growth 
is required, and there is a limited jjeriod to 
the existence of a plant. Schizanthus would 
be an excellent plant to test in this way, but 
if the plant, like a Balsam, is capable of being 
grown to fill a bushel-pot in one season, the 
job of growing up a few of these specimens 
would be enormous. I have mentioned the 
Balsam as a plant to be grown on the one-shift 
system, not so much in advocacy of the prin- 
ciple, as in corroboration of its possibility; not 
