GLOXINIAS. 
203 
The soil for their after-culture I should recommend to be rough, 
rich peat, made very sandy. If the peat is poor, a little light loam 
mixed with it will greatly benefit it. The best time to shift them 
is the month of July. If the plants are not bushy, any shoots 
may be cut off at this time to make them so ; and, after shifting, 
they should be set out of doors in a similar situation to that 
which heaths, &c., would be set in at this season of the year. The 
advantage of giving them a long period out of doors is so great, 
that I should be inclined to put them out before or by the middle 
of July, and an occasional watering with clear liquid manure about 
once a week during the spring and summer months will be found 
of great advantage to them. In winter, a dry and very airy part 
of the greenhouse should be chosen for them, as they are impa¬ 
tient of a confined atmosphere. Treated in this way, they begin 
to show colour by the end of January, and by March are orna¬ 
mental enough to grace the conservatory, where they will be very 
beautiful till the season comes to remove them out of doors. 
“ J. Cattell.” 
GLOXINIAS. 
Sir, —I wrote you last April on the success attendant on my 
system of growing Thunbergia as a window ornament, and at this 
time I have one more luxuriant than at any time last season. 
I take this as an opportunity for naming the above; but my 
object is to state the success I have had in the growth of one of, 
as I conceive, the most beautiful, both in foliage as well as 
flowers, of our stove plants, viz. the Gloxinia; and, having 
an ungovernable desire to grow them, with the best accom¬ 
modation I could attain, I commenced with but a single light 
box, and bottom heat to start them with. I procured a bulb last 
autumn, and kept it in silver sand, in a cupboard in the house, of 
course free from frost and damp, until the last week in March, 
when I made a hotbed of about half a cart-load of stable dung, 
placing on my light, as is usual, and potted my bulb into a 
16-sized pot, in a compost principally of rough peat, or heath 
mould with silver sand, and a small quantity of old melon-bed 
