114 
THE FLOEIST AND POMOLOaiST. 
[ MAY, 
cal hoeing always maintains healthiness and fertility about and amongst every 
kind of crop, and thus prepares and maintains the soil in a fit state for each suc¬ 
ceeding crop. Only allow a crop of weeds to put in an appearance—why, it is 
not only admitting a gang of robbers, but the garden assumes at the same time 
a disgraceful and neglected appearance ; such robbers, too, as it will not only take 
time to extirpate, but which possibly, after taking from, souring, and stagnating 
your crops, will take ten times as long to eradicate as it would have taken to 
have surface-hoed the plot in due season. Besides, I do not know of a more dis¬ 
graceful sight in or about a garden than a heavy crop of weeds. 
One thing I have often observed in the course of my travels. Wherever a 
piece of- waste land, that has never previously been observed to produce anything 
but brambles, bushes, heath, furze, or native grasses, is taken into cultivation, it 
will very soon, after being stirred about a bit—a process which is often called 
‘cultivating’ it—produce a great variety of weeds. Now, I have for many years 
observed that shallow cultivation is the real hot-bed and encourager of luxuriant 
crops of weeds. This fact may be seen in every locality in the case of twitch or 
couch-grass—too well known by these and other local names. It luxuriates to that 
degree by shallow culture, that it fills the whole surface-soil to the depth of two or 
three inches with its running rooting-stems, and the more it is stirred, scarified, 
or shallow-ploughed, the more it luxuriates, defying the would-be extirpator; 
but only trench or deeply cultivate that soil, and the extirpation is at once made 
certain ; the weed cannot resist the practice of deep cultivation, and may thus 
at once and for ever be blotted out of sight by this simple and profitable practice. 
—James Baenes, Exmouth. 
AEALIA SIEBOLDII AND SPINOSA. 
EEMIT me to bring under the notice of your readers these very ornamental 
sub-tropical plants, which are well adapted for introducing among flower¬ 
beds, or as single lawn specimens, during the summer and autumn months. 
The former is, indeed, said by some to be too tender to stand through our 
severe winters, which our experience here shows to be quite a mistake, as we have 
had it planted out in an exposed situation for more than twelve years past, with¬ 
out its having sustained any injury whatever. By the majority of nurserymen, 
however, this species is still catalogued as a conservatory shrub; but to plant it in 
such a place is merely a misapplication of space, which might be employed to 
much greater advantage. 
Neither pf the two species above-named is fastidious as to the quality of 
soil, so long as it is of a free character, and not subject to an excess of water. 
Propagation may be easily managed. Suckers are freely produced, so that plants 
may be acquired ad libitum. The flowers generally begin to show themselves 
about the middle of October, and continue to expand till the middle of November; 
they are not, however, very engaging, being of a dull creamy-white ; still they 
fill up a gap at that late season.— Alexandee Cbamb, Tortworth, 
