LIQUID MANURES, AND THEIR USES. 
333 
on it, more or less. The Verbenas, though 
very tempting in appearance, are not good 
London flowers. Some of the most free, if 
got just to the eve of blooming in their country 
abode, will stand a short time flowering in 
a town -house, but they are soon the worse for 
their confinement. The best management for 
all these plants is to keep them, upon the 
whole, rather dry than otherwise; never to let 
them absolutely flag, but not let them be sod- 
dened with water. A small hand syringe to 
wash off the soot and dust occasionally, will 
be of great service ; and they should have the 
air as much as possible, but not the full sun, 
for that would soon spoil them. The watering 
should always be done with river or rain- 
water, as pump-water deteriorates them ra- 
pidly. Whether it is the chill, or the absence 
of a particular nourishment which is always 
found in soft water, we know not, but the fact 
is always so, even in the country, and there- 
fore cannot be good in London. It is better 
always to go to the nurseries than to the 
markets, for you there see everything in its 
natural place and state, and select those you 
like ; but you must always remember to select 
those coming into flower, and not those which 
have arrived at perfection. The one will be 
getting better, and the other getting worse, 
from the moment you get them into your 
possession ; and one is far more desirable than 
the other. 
DYSOPHYLLA STELLATA, 
(Bentham.) 
THE STARRY DYSOPHYLL. 
A very neat and elegant herbaceous plant, 
inhabiting Malabar and Mysore. The stem 
is erect and branching, beset at short intervals 
witli whorls of from six to eight narrow, linear, 
pointed leaves ; the flowers are produced in 
crowded spikes at the terminations of the 
shoots, and much resemble those of some 
Veronicas in their arrangement and appear- 
ance, though the plant is really more nearly 
allied to the mints, from which it was not 
originally distinguished. 
It is a very delicate and elegant plant, 
growing scarcely a foot high, and flowering in 
October : a specimen grown in the garden 
of the Right Honourable the Karl of Auck- 
land flowered at that season. It should be 
potted in light soil, composed of peat and 
loam, with sand intermixed, and requires a 
warm green-house during the year; there is 
little hope of its being able to bear the open air 
in this country. It is propagated by division 
of the root, in the same way as other herba- 
ceous plants; or the young shoots may be taken 
and treated as cuttings, and will strike freely 
with a little bottom heat. 
LIQUID MANURES, AND THEIR USES. 
Nothing is more common than for authors, 
on various subjects in gardening, to recom- 
mend liquid manure to be applied, without in 
one instance, from the beginning to the end 
of their remarks, saying what they mean by it, 
of what it is to be composed, or what quantity 
of any kind of manure and water composes it. 
Now, there is hardly a more uncertain thing, 
hardly a more vague expression, than liquid 
manure. Various are the manures of the 
present day. Leaf mould is vegetable manure, 
and the most innocent of any; for it is com- 
posed of nothing but the leaves which were 
the produce of the earth returned to earth 
again ; and if you could make a ton of it hold 
in solution with a butt of water, and it were 
applied instead of water itself, it could do no 
harm ; but this, perhaps, never entered the 
thoughts of those who recommend liquid 
manure. We have seen the dung of poultry 
made into liquid manure ; one shovelful of 
it, in a state which we may call partly decom- 
posed, put into a barrel of water, that is, 
thirty-six gallons. This was being applied 
efficaciously to potted plants about every 
third watering, and to out-of-door crops 
once a week. Every time it was used it 
was stirred up until the barrel was half 
emptied, when the liquor was used with- 
out stirring. The contents at the bottom 
were always cleaned out every time the liquor 
was emptied, that the quality should always be 
alike, and not be altered by the sediment of 
the former mixture. This was thrown on the 
