88 
EXTRACTS —FLORICULTURE. 
to have bloom every month in the year, plant every month. The finer sorts 
require protection from violent storms, and excessive light and heat; but many 
varieties thrive exceedingly well in borders. A very severe winter will destroy 
the roots, if the surface is not mulched, but the Anemone is considerably harder 
than the garden Ranunculus. 
In order to obtain new varieties, seeds should be saved from single or semi¬ 
double kinds; to be sown in shallow pots, or boxes, filled with light rich earth, 
in August, covering them a quarter of an inch thick with the same kind of earth 
and when the plants rise, care should be taken to protect them from the frost. 
In the following season, when their leaves begin to decay, they should be taken 
up and dried, and afterwards planted out in borders, in the same manner as the 
old roots; and in the following summer they will produce flowers. 
Those species under section Pulsatilloutes are greenhouse evergreen herbace¬ 
ous plants, and grow best in an equal mixture of sand, loam, and peat, but care 
must be taken not to let them have too much water, when in a dormant state. 
They often produce perfect seeds, by which young plants are readily raised ; 
they will also strike root from cuttings, in the same kind of soil, under a hand¬ 
glass.— Don’s Miller’s Dictionary. 
Bomb ax or Silk Cotton Tree. —The B. ceiba, is a very large tree, the 
wood is very light, and not much valued, except for making canoes. Their 
trunks are so large, that being hollowed they make very large ones. In Colum¬ 
bus’s first voyage, it was related, that a canoe was seen at the Island of Cuba, 
made of one of these trees, which was ninety-five palms long, of a proportionate 
width, and capable of containing one hundred and fifty men. Some writers 
have affirmed, that there are trees of the silk cotton, growing in the West Indies, 
so large as not to be fathomed by sixteen men, and so tall that an arrow cannot 
be shot to their tops. The canoes now made in the West Indies from this tree 
frequently carry from fifteen to twenty hogsheads of sugar, weighing from six to 
twelve hundred weight each, the average being about twenty-five tons burden. 
When sawn into boards, and well saturated with lime-water, the wood bears ex¬ 
posure to the weather many years; it is also formed into laths for roofs, curing- 
pots, and hogshead heading. When the tree decays, it becomes a nest for the 
Macaca beetle, the caterpillar of which, when gutted and fried, is esteemed by 
mauy persons as one of the greatest delicacies. The down which is inclosed in 
the seed vessels is very soft and siikv; it is seldom used, except by the poorer 
inhabitants to stuff pillows or chairs; and it is generally thought unwholesome 
to lie upon. 
The species of Bombax grow best in rich loamy soil. Cuttings should not be 
too ripe, and if they are taken off at a joint, they will root freely in sand under 
a bell-glass, in a moist heat, but plants raised from seeds, brought from the 
places of their natural growth, make finer trees. None of the species have ever 
flowered in our stoves, and it is not likely they ever will, as most of them acquire 
a height of fifty or sixty feet before they attempt to flower in their native coun¬ 
tries.— Ibid. 
Culture of the Hibiscus. —The species are all showy flowering plants. The 
shrubby stove kinds thrive best in a mixture of loam and peat. Cuttings will 
strike root readily in sand or mould under a bell or hand-glass, in heat. The 
greenhouse shrubby species require nearly the same treatment as the stove kinds. 
The annual stove species should be sown in pots and placed in a hotbed frame, 
