chap, xi.] SUCCULENT PLxlNTS. 371 
they are subjected to alternate seasons of 
extreme wet and extreme dryness. Culti¬ 
vators attempting to imitate this, have grown 
their plants in poor sandy soil* and kept 
them entirely without water at one season, 
while they have been inundated with it at 
another. The fact is, that when we attempt 
to imitate nature., we should remember that the 
attempt is useless unless we can do so in every 
particular; and also that the plants we have to 
cultivate, have been nursed up into so very 
artificial a state, that if they were transplanted 
to their native plains they would probably 
perish, like a poor Canary bird, which a 
mistake of philanthropy has turned out of 
the cage in which it has long lived. For 
this reason, we must adopt the mode of 
treating succulents, which the best gardeners 
find most successful, without troubling our¬ 
selves to discover why it is so different from 
the natural habit of the plants. This mode 
of treatment is, then, to grow the plants in a 
rich loamy soil, kept open, as it is called, by 
the addition of lime rubbish; and to give 
the plants water all the year, but more mode¬ 
rately when they are in a dormant, than when 
E B 2 
