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may have free supplies of water, which must be lessened as their 
growth approaches maturity ; and cease, or nearly so, when 
that is attained, until the return of their growing season.” In 
winter they are frequently kept in too warm a part of the room; 
they need not be removed from the window during frost, unless 
it be very severe ; and then, being placed on the floor, near 
to the window, will be sufficient; they will be safe where 
water placed beside them merely begins to freeze. Camellias 
will even bear the soil being a little frozen ; the cause of 
their frequently losing their blossom buds is occasioned by 
their being kept in too warm a part of the room in severe wea- 
ther. Plants should not, after the window has been long kept 
closed, have it opened widely at once ; but the plants should be 
inured to the air, by degrees. Placing them out in the sun, 
without their being thus gradually inured to much light and air, 
is very injurious to them. Many cultivators are quite uncon- 
scious of the injury plants receive by a sudden change from that 
state in which they have been long kept, to one of an opposite 
tendency. Heaths will bear as much frost as the Camellia. 
Pelargonium, Fuchsia, Rose, and similar plants should be 
potted in rich loamy soil, mixed with manure that is rotted to 
soil ; whilst those requiring peat soil, such as Ericas, Epacrises, 
&c., must not have any sort of rotted manure put to the soil, nor 
ever be watered with liquid manure. A very good compost 
for potting those requiring rich soil, may be obtained from old 
hedge rows, which have been enriched by the decaying leaves 
of the hawthorn, &c., and also sweetened by long exposure to 
all sorts of weather. A word should be said on the state of the 
soil in pots. Watering in the usual way will, unavoidably, 
render the earth close, and when dry, also hard; therefore 
it should be loosened, with a sharp stick, kept for the purpose. 
Plants requiring to have larger pots may be shifted at any 
season, for if they are turned carefully out of their pots, not a 
root need be disturbed during the operation. Another tribe of 
plants, with thick fleshy stems or leaves, termed succulent 
plants, are well adapted for window cultivation, but they require 
a different kind of treatment from that above recommended. 
Amongst them are Mesembryanthemum, with its hundreds of 
species; Cactus, Aloe, Mammillaria, Sempervivum, — all plants 
of interest ; many amongst them of the most grotesque forms ; 
