294 
STOVE AND ORCHIDEOUS HOUSE. 
consequence in single and common Anemones, 
but with choice named flowers a sort may be 
lost easily. 
Ciikvsantiiemums. — Take off top cuttings, 
and strike them under a hand-glass, with 
careful shading from the hot sun, as these 
cuttings will make neat dwarf plants for pot- 
ting, or blooming in the borders. This is the 
only way to get dwarf plants; for by this time 
most of the sorts have got up eighteen inches, 
and if let alone till they bloom, would be a foot 
higher. The old stocks may be turned out 
in the borders to make fresh shoots, and 
bloom there. 
The Lawn requires frequent mowing. 
Straggling branches of flowering and evergreen 
shrubs must be cut back, box edgings clipped, 
weeds removed, gravel walks rolled after rain, 
Roses, and other staked trees, examined, to see 
they are secure, climbing plants fastened as 
their shoots grow, all the dead and decaying 
flower-heads removed from plants, fancy 
shrubs, and American plants, whose seed-pods 
should now be allowed to swell, unless the 
seed be wanting. American plants are making 
their growth, and should be literally soaked 
with watering every few days ; for the rain 
rarely gets to their roots, in consequence of 
their close foliage throwing it off ; and clean- 
liness must be attended to in all things, and if 
anything directed to be done previously be still 
omitted, do it at once, upon the principle of 
"Better late than never." Things may not 
be so well for delay, but they may be better 
than none. 
STOVE AND ORCHIDEOUS HOUSE. 
If, as in most cases of amateur growers, 
these are one and the same, a considerable 
moisture must be kept up, by syringing the 
floor and flues, or pipes, and the orchideous 
plants must not have the sun. They must be 
effectually shaded ; and one of the best plans, 
as a simple one, that we know of, is to nail 
a piece of thick calico, or other cheap article, 
inside the glass, under the rafters, imme- 
diately over the end of the house where the 
orchideous plants are, and to syringe three or 
four times a-day, enough to soak the shade, 
as well as all under them. This tribe of 
plants are nearly all produced, naturally, in 
warm, shady, swampy situations. In fact, heat, 
shade, and moisture, seem as essential to 
them, as dryness, moderate temperature, and 
light, are to many other plants. The stove 
plants generally require constant watching, to 
observe whether there be any attack of the 
scale, mealy bug, or red spider, and immediate 
attention to eradicate it before it gets a-head. 
The introduction of an affected plant will, if 
unobserved a few days, affect the cleanest 
house and plants in the world throughout ; 
and then it is exceedingly difficult to get rid 
of, and causes immense labour. Some of the 
richly flowering stove plants will be prolonged 
in beauty by a slight shade, or by placing 
them in some part of the house, near the 
foliage of other plants. Those who wish to 
propagate stove plants of any kind, may take 
off cuttings, and strike them under a bell- 
glass, in pots, plunged in the tan, and shaded, 
with a paper over the glass, during the heat 
of the day. Plants out of flower, — that is to 
say, Avhich have done flowering, and are 
about to make growth, — may require shifting 
into larger pots. This may be seen by turn- 
ing out the ball of earth, and observing 
whether the roots are matted round the pot; 
specimen plants, growing up for size, should 
be shifted every time the roots fairly reach 
the side, and before they are matted together; 
for, directly this begins, they lose growth, 
and by a continuance of it, and a little neglect 
in the watering, a premature bloom would be 
the consequence. Cleanliness is so essential 
at this time, that all the wood work, and 
crevices, and corners, should be brushed with 
weak soap and water ; and if anything like 
the aphides, or other similar pests, appear, a 
fumigation with tobacco would be useful. 
PITS, FRAMES, ETC. 
These come in useful for all kinds of plants 
which have been shifted, and want to be shut 
up, or shaded awhile ; also for the protection 
of seedlings just up, and seed sown in pans, 
boxes, or pots ; but they may be appropriated 
to anything and everything, — strikes of cut- 
tings, layering, inarching, budding, grafting, 
and otherwise propagating a vast number of 
subjects. Pits are easily heated by filling 
them with tan, in which pots and pans of 
seedlings may be plunged. They are also use- 
ful for everything that requires shading ; but 
there are no directions that can be given for 
their management. One may have to do the 
work of the green-house, another the hot-house, 
a third propagation, and so on, ad infinitum. 
In a general way, the pits and frames may 
be looked upon as tenders to ships, assistants 
to every department in turn ; but they are 
always useful ; for there are very hardy things 
that the sun in mid-day is too much for, and 
such should always be placed in a frame or 
pit, because the quantity of air, sun, and rain, 
can be limited without difficulty, and, if neces- 
sary, the glasses can be removed, and the 
whole of the weather admitted. The hot months 
are more trying to many things than the cold 
ones j and the Rhododendron and the Ca- 
mellia, while small, may be handsomely set for 
bloom without difficulty in a pit, while in the 
open ground they would be stinted, and in 
the green-house drawn, and in both, perhaps, 
