202 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ September, 
extremes of all weathers, being moored in tlie very teetli of tlie tempest. A 
month’s burning sunshine, or three months of hard frost, pass over its evergreen 
head without damaging a leaf. A little mud made of clay and stable dung 
makes an excellent compost, and a corner of the coping of the gable of the house, 
close to the chimney, a good site for this old-fashioned favourite. 
In the pleasure-grounds the hardy Semperviviims may all be cultivated on the 
sloping edge of a rock, but the plants are quite out of place when planted on level 
ground ; and except for exhibition or for sale, the Houseleeks have no business in 
pots. They are ornamental all the year round, and never disgrace their standing. 
When they flower they do it freely ; but here let me hint that flowering is not 
their forte; they look far better in their working dress than on fete days, for like 
the American Aloe of notoriety, the Houseleok wisely fills its sacks first, calmly 
collecting materials it may be for 3 ’ears, so that when it does run to flower and 
seed the cost of propagating its species seems to have been fairl}’ counted. Those 
who know plants best will agree with me that succulent plants are generally 
destroyed by the slightest frost, and, therefore, the Houseleek, which withstands 
the extremes of heat and cold, proves itself to be no ordinary sample of the 
British Flora. It is called in Scotland by the quaint name of Foos^ but for what 
reason I know not. S. arachnoideum, when grown in single heads in thumb-pots, 
is a great curiosity, and has long been a pet in the miniature collections that 
children play with, the pot and plant being less than the size of a hen’s egg. 
Hardiness, then, may be noted as one of the Houseleek’s greatest virtues, and 
endurance may be set down as another important claim on public favour, for 
when once planted it may safely be left untouched for many years. The thought 
of watering such a plant or manuring it would be out of the question, for 
dryness is the very life of it, and stirring the soil about it or any like officious 
meddling would be madness, for the roof garden admits of no such frivolity, the 
burly Houseleek lives and grows fat upon aerial food. The roof garden must 
have its plants put out of harm’s way ; they are only to be looked at, and need 
no rearrangement at shorter intervals than seven, or even fourteen years. Cats, 
that are such a nuisance to plants on balconies and in windows, do not meddle 
with Semperviviims, as they do with musk and grass and many other plants. 
This is truly a household plant; in thousands of instances it is to be seen 
astraddle on the ridge of what we delight to call our home, and what housewife, 
worthy of the name, would allow her clump of Houseleek to be molested ? Books 
are written on the management of household pets—silkworms, singing birds, 
poultry, tame rabbits, guinea pigs, and the like. Surel}^ then, the jolly, fat 
Houseleek deserves a place among living pets, for it is so tenacious of life that 
when the hard frost in Scotland killed the Whins it never harmed the Foos. 
Persons once thoroughly imbued with the mania for bedding plants would 
reckon it next to insanity to admire the . elegant fronds of flowerless ferns; the 
grower of exotic orchids would- think lightly of lowly Alpine plants on the 
