354 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 25, 1895. 
reasonable treatment is afforded afterwards. Baskets are easily 
made, teak wood being the best, but it is advisable to purchase 
them ready made from dealers. The size of the baskets is a matter 
of taste, and must depend to a large extent on their proposed 
occupants. I have seen fine blooms produced on plants growing 
in baskets but 6 inches square. The baskets should be lined 
with moss to prevent the soil falling through, and for appearance 
sake. 
A suitable compost for this Dendrobium is composed of equal 
parts of fibrous peat and loam. Charcoal, broken in Walnut-sized 
lumps, help to retain porosity. A handful of finely ground bones 
stimulates the growth, increasing its luxuriance and length of stem, 
accompanied by a larger number of blossoms. The tallest and 
strongest plants should be placed in the middle of the basket, 
finishing off in one corner, surfacing the whole with moss. A 
thorough soaking with tepid water should be given to settle the 
soil about the roots. For a week or so all the moisture required 
can he given by the aid of the syringe, this being brought into use 
two or three times daily. 
When in full growth abundant supplies of water should be 
given, and occasionally doses of liquid manure will be an advantage, 
at all times using it in a tepid condition.—B. W. 
SUNSHINE AND SHADE. 
The past year of 1894 with its predecessor of 1893, whilst 
affording practical examples of sunshine and shade, do not for the 
purposes of this subject yield data so strongly bearing on it as the 
ordinary type of weather in the British Isles, which may be termed 
mixed. But little if any trouble in the matter of shading our plant 
houses occurred during that glorious and prolonged Italian summer 
of 1893. The maximum amount of shading which was then required 
to veil our plants from the solar rays, entailed but the minimum 
amount of labour in the performance. Indeed, were similar 
seasons the rule instead of the exception, this subject need hardly 
have been broached. The same, perhaps, though in a less degree, 
with the sunless summer of more recent date ; although, in this 
case, anxiety ensued in watching for those rays, which long delayed 
bring additional danger to delicate subjects under glass. 
We are not, however, ruled by exceptions. The ordinary 
course is looked for, and for such must preparations be made. 
April, the month of smiles and tears, sees all the paraphernalia of 
blinds and rollers, pullies and cords, in active running for the 
season. Personal experience and observation of things past and 
present lead to the inference that there are but few places in 
which this important means to an end has attained to perfection. 
Many places there are, certainly, where the subject is indeed a 
shady one. In some large gardening establishments a crop of 
trouble is annually raised by this means. Neither time nor place 
need be particularised here, for what is common in one is common 
to many, and those who have joined in a general stampede when 
some passing cloud peremptorily ordered the bothy hands to quit 
their meals, know how welcome was the perfectly fine day or the 
thoroughly wet one. 
I have some lively recollections of a comrade on a lofty house 
savagely ripping off the caudal appendages of a new Glengarry 
bonnet as the breeze fluttered them in his eyes whilst trying to free 
the offending blind. Such experiences are of the long ago ; yet 
with all the evident marks of progress in horticulture, things 
pertaining to this subject appear to have made but slight advance. 
Warped rollers, kinking cords, sticking pullies, and the tattered and 
torn stage of a blind’s life are still as much to the front as they 
are in the background of bothy life. One need not plead the cause 
of our embryo gardeners and fail to recognise the bearing such 
matters have on those in authority over them. In those well 
conducted establishments where all but martial law prevails, 
any portion of the machinery of working when not running 
smoothly affects the whole. 
Horticultural builders, many of whom by their practical 
knowledge of our requirements give such results in glazing, heating, 
and ventilation as to leave nothing on that head to be desired, have 
not, I think, given to this question the consideration it deserves. 
There are good all-round reasons why it should receive that 
attention, and be thought as necessary by them as it is known to 
be by us for the perfection of plant culture. In many instances 
proper fixtures for shading should be made a part and 
parcel of the structure, thus avoiding temporary makeshifts too 
often seen. Indeed, in some cases where this matter has been 
altogether lost sight of is the original design, difficulties which 
have to be met are never entirely overcome. There is, I think, 
sufficient scope in this subject to engage the attention of a specialist. 
Equally important is the material for the blinds and the 
machinery for making them available with the least possible 
amount of friction, figurative or literal. Among the various 
materials used for the purpose, I would ask. Have manufacturers 
given us the best possible to have, and of the highest possible 
durability ? If it is allowed that in some or any of the shadings to 
be had, this has been attained to—which is a matter for doubt—I 
would again ask whether the chemist cannot assist with some 
solution which will as a preservative yet add to their lasting powers. 
As there yet remains to be produced a special cord—horticultural 
cord—to match the good qualities we look for in the shading 
material, probably the best thing yet obtainable is patent sashline, 
and for ordinary purpose* No. 5 is suitable. 
Difficulty is often encountered in the pullies, by their not being 
adapted to the angle of a roof, thus wearing out the cords by 
friction and causing frequent blocks. Those who are conversant 
with the subject cannot fail to notice the weak points in the 
apparatus in ordinary use, one of which is to be found in the 
rollers with the method of attaching the blinds to them. In the 
present day, when steel is in various instances replacing wood, 
tubular steel rollers appear to me to commend themselves for the 
purpose, nor should there be any difficulty in attaching the material 
to them. Anything other than wood may suggest breakage of 
the glass, yet there should be considerably less risk than with a 
warped, wobbling wooden roller on which the blind is seldom 
rolled up as compact as it should be. 
Although we require the best weather-resisting material which 
fully answers the purpose of a perfect shade without unduly 
darkening the interior, there is no reason why this should not have 
the protection of a coping when not in use ; that is, where the 
style of building and method of ventilation admits of it being 
fixed. Truly this is nothing new, for as a junior—some thirty 
years since—it was my duty to run the blinds up snugly under the 
coping, where during the winter season they were available, and of 
great service on an exceptionally severe night. 
Of the manifold methods employed in shading plant houses 
details need not be entered on here. If there are any systems 
unknown to me affording a happier experience than mine has been 
with this subject, it would, I venture to think, be worth making 
known for the benefit of bothered ones. And if there is any 
perfect plan which would bring peace after thirty years’ war with 
a subject more shady than sunshiny, details of such illustrated by 
diagrams would prove more helpful than any suggestions here 
advanced, for a theory undemonstrated by practice is but a mirage. 
—E. K., Dublin. 
PLANT-FORMING ELEMENTS. 
(Concluded from page 333.) 
Nitrogen and Potash. 
In contradistinction to plants using the uncombined nitrogen of 
the air for their own or a succeeding crop’s benefit, there are some 
that are considered to obtain nitrogen by the leaves absorbing 
ammonia directly from the air. This rests upon no solid founda¬ 
tion, and the deductions from practice are uncertain conjectures. 
An ammonia-charged atmosphere certainly favours the growth and 
health of plants in glass structures when present in small amount, 
and rain water fresh from the clouds accelerating plant growth 
more than the water long kept in tanks ; also, pond water is better 
for plants than that from deep wells, and ammoniated water employed 
for syringing is more beneficial to the growth than if used ordinarily. 
Is not this conclusive ? Do chemists find more nitrogen in such 
ammonia-fed plants, or is there not rather a larger appropriation of 
the inorganic elements than is the case without the so-called 
ammonia vapour ? Any attempts at feeding plants with ammonia 
by the leaves is as uncertain as dangerous, for any excess—more 
than is contained in ordinary atmospheric air during moist weather— 
has a prejudicial effect upon vegetation in variable measure. That 
this moist atmosphere, with its ammonia and nitric acid, favours 
plant growth is manifested on every hand, and the much larger 
amounts of atmospheric moisture and minute quantities of ammonia 
arising from decaying substances in glass structures accounts for 
plants under artificial treatment surpassing in vigour those grown 
under natural conditions. Thus plants under glass have the best 
natural circumstances accorded to them without the disadvantages, 
and they flourish correspondingly by the uniformity of the moist 
growing atmosphere. 
It is, however, through the roots that plants chiefly take up 
ammonia compounds, and the main source of the nitrogen obtained 
by vegetation is from the soil, being taken up by the roots of 
plants in the form of nitrates. A nitrate is a salt formed by the 
chemical union of nitric acid with a metal, such as potassium or 
sodium, and by the process of nitrification ammonium compounds 
and organic substances in the soil are converted into nitrates, which 
are the most available form of nitrogen for taking up by the roots 
