40 
[ January 17, 1884. 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
ought to be grateful for what was provided by gardeners. There was a good 
deal of enjoyment to be got out of plants, and whether in or out of doors our 
happiness was very much increased by the labours of those who cultivated 
flowers. He hoped the study of horticulture would be developed, and that 
the people would be induced to contribute rather more freely than they had 
done towards the attainment of that end. It was of the utmost importance 
that they should maintain the stability of the Society ; and it was to be 
hoped its usefulness would be extended in the direction of essays on subjects 
which came within their everyday life. 
Some particulars of the Society will be given, but in the meantime its 
condition and working, as succinctly embodied in a speech by Mr. Sunley, 
will indicate its character :— 
“ In responding to the success of the Society in the absence of Mr. Feather- 
stone I will go back as far as 1880. That year the income amounted to £116, 
and £79 was paid for sickness and death. In 1881 the income was £107 ; 
paid for sickness £18 ; the most successful year the Society experienced. In 
1882 the income was £116 ; paid for sickness and death, £104, that being the 
heaviest year for sickness and other causes we have had. In 1883 
the income was close upon £183, and payments £92. That gives 
a total saved during the four years of £229 to meet other light 
expenses. When a member is unable to follow his employment 
through sickness he receives £13 for the first twenty-six weeks, 
and 5s. per week as long as he is ill. At the death of a member 
his widow receives £10. At the death of a wife the member 
receives £7. At the end of seventeen years there is a saving 
of £675, and the payments for all these advantages only amount 
to 13s. each member yearly, except when a death takes place a levy 
is made of Is. each for a member, and 6(7. for a number's wife.” 
The meeting was a most enjoyable one—the best the Society 
has had, and the prize essays will in due time be published in our 
columns. 
CACTACEOUS PLANTS. 
Grostesqueness of form or habit is rarely found in com¬ 
bination with floral beauty in the vegetable world, yet no family 
affords more remarkable examples of this union of widely di¬ 
vergent qualities than the great and peculiar Cactus order. 
In many large groups of plants we find numbers possessing 
handsome foliage, but having only insignificant flowers, and in 
many others also when the flowers are more than usually 
attractive the foliage appears chiefly to serve the purpose of a 
foil to their rich or bright colours, having in itself nothing of 
a specially striking nature. There seems to be something of 
Nature’s economy in thus developing one particular quality at 
the expense of others—a concentration of strength, which 
probably has a deeper meaning than we can perceive, for it 
is observable in the animal kingdom as well as amongst 
plants. The Cactus family is, however, an extraordinary ex¬ 
ception, for, whether flowering or not, the majority of the plants 
constituting it are distinguished by most striking characters. 
They do not possess beautifully coloured or elegantly formed 
foliage to recommend them ; on the contrary, true leaves are 
absent from nearly all, but in contrast to some of the most 
gorgeous flowers produced by plants, we see unwieldy masses 
of vegetable matter, spherical, cylindrical, or angular, armed 
with stout and formidable spines, and resembling what we 
might almost imagine to be the relics of a vegetation belong¬ 
ing to a period long prior to the development of the plant life 
familiar to us in the present age. Such would be the first 
impression ; but when the brilliantly coloured rose, crimson, 
purple, or yellow blooms were seen the observer would be led 
to the conclusion that while the plant was advancing to so high 
a degree of floral beauty, one portion of its constitution must 
have been strangely stunted and altered by some external long- 
continued forces. There is an inconsistence of characters that 
must impress the least observant, and imparts an interest to the 
plants which increases with the knowledge we gain respecting 
them, for they are surrounded as it were by a degree of mystery 
that always adds a charm to Nature. 
Cactaceous plants have therefore much to recommend them 
to lovers of the curious and the beautiful, but the majority 
also possess another very valuable character— i.c., they are 
easily grown, so easily in fact that the cottager who can 
only devote a small space to them in his window may, and 
often does, grow many of them as successfully as the greatest 
magnate in Europe with all the most elaborate horticultural appliances 
at his command. In the dry and heated atmosphere of a room which is 
so trying to most plants they are perfectly at home, and their demands 
upon the attention of their host are so slight they may be left for weeks, 
nay months, without the smallest supply of water. It is not surprising, 
therefore, that many of the Cacti are favourites with dwellers in towns, 
and many a toiler has had his heart lightened by a sight of the lovely 
flowers produced by his window “ Cactus,” or has felt the pleasure of 
exhibiting his vegetable curiosities to his friends. Amateurs, too, in 
many other grades of life have found in the cultivation of these plants 
the satisfaction which is derived from the constant study of the wonderful 
phases of plant-existence; and though it can never be expected that they 
will rise to a popularity approaching that of the Rose, yet there is a 
steadily increasing demand for them, and several nurserymen now 
make a speciality of them. Considerable stimulus has no doubt been 
given to the culture of Cactaceous plants by the efforts of J. T. Peacock, 
Esq., Sudbury House, Hammersmith, who, with the aid of his former 
gardener, Mr. Croucher, formed the largest private collection in this 
country, and this together with the wonderful collection at Kew ha 
rendered the best of such plants familiar to Londoners. A large trade 
too, sprung up a short time ago in “ miniature Cacti,” and thi3 by bring¬ 
ing a number of forms within the reach of most people at moderate 
prices has still further assisted in popularising an interesting class of 
plants. The claims of the Cacti to general notice having been briefly 
reviewed in the foregoing notes, a slight survey of the family may be 
now undertaken, commencing with the 
STRUCTURE. 
The most prominent general character of the plants comprised in the 
natural order Cactaceae is the unusually large development of cellular 
tissue, to which circumstance they in common with some others of 
different families owe the popular and wide designation of “ succulent 
plaits.” The stem is, with few exceptions, leafless, and varies in form 
from the globular Melocactus to the columnar Cereus, being generally 
unbranched, except in the Rhipsalises, Opuntias, and slender-growing 
Cereus. The surface is either marked with angular ridges from base to 
summit, upon which are arranged with great regularity a series of clusters 
of spines varying in size, colour, and number, or, as in the Mammillarias, 
the surface is broken into a number of small rounded projections or 
mammillae, each crowned with a cluster of spines. These spines in 
several of the genera furnish useful characters in distinguishing the 
species, size, colour, and number, being found to be constant in the 
majority of cases. They are exceedingly numerous, and specimens of 
moderate size of Cereus senilis have been found to have from 50,000 to 
70,000. In size, too, the Cacti have a wide range of variation, from some 
of the diminutive Mammillarias a few inches high to the gigantic Cereus 
peruvianus which is found in its native habitat upwards of 50 feet high, 
and the huge Echinocactus Yisnaga, single specimens of which have been 
introduced to this country weighing as much as a ton. These plants 
contain comparatively little woody tissue except when they are very much 
advanced in age, the cellular tissue being very largely developed in the 
