November 3. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
79 
moist atmosphere and a moderate temperature on ele¬ 
vated positions in Silket and Nepaul, it delights in an 
open, airy greenhouse, from tho end of May to the 
middle of October. In July or August, a few cuttings 
should he taken oil three or four inches long, cut across 
at a joint, two or three of the lower leaves removed, the 
base of the cutting allowed to dry for a day, while the 
top of the cutting is moistened and covered with a green 
leaf, to prevent the evaporating of its juices, and then 
inserted in sandy soil, round the sides of a well-drained 
pot, and placed in a close cold frame, or one containing 
tho least amount of bottom-heat, as in a cucumber or 
melon box. Here they will soon strike, and must be 
exposed to air by degrees. They will want water during 
winter, but it must bo given with great caution, only 
when wanted, if the plants are kept cool in a green¬ 
house, say from 45° to 48°; if kept warmer, as in a cool 
stove, ranging from 50° to (30°, there need bo less care 
in watering. Old plants may also be pruned back, and 
if there is only a greenhouse, kept cool all the winter. 
I would prefer this mode, exposing the plants to as 
much sun and air as possible, before and after the 
smaller shoots were pruned back, and then keeping 
them dryish over the winter, merely preserving the 
buds alive, and then giving them an extra heat in 
March or April, by placing them in a slight hotbed, or 
any house or pit, ranging from 55° to 60°. Here they 
will soon grow freely, and cuttings being taken ofl, they 
will strike in a few days, and may then bo grown rapidly 
on. Young plants always bloom best. 
2. Soil and General Management .—In potting, at first 
I have used peat, leaf mould, and saudy loam; but as 
the shiftings are given loam is almost solely used, and 
this has a tendency to make the plant more robust and 
compact. An eight or a twelve-inch pot will grow a 
bushy plant from three feet in height, and wide in 
proportion. In training, the chief thing is to stop all 
the principal shoots until you get the plant well fur¬ 
nished all over with shoots nearly equal in strength, 
and when these are unstopped each will soon begin to 
produce blooms freely from near their points, and con- 
| tinue to do so so long as the points continue to elongate, 
and you give them a sufficiency of light and heat. In a 
cool stove they would bloom all the winter. When they 
have bloomed some time, a little top-dressing of cow- 
I dung, or manure-waterings, will invigorate them. They 
1 will also delight in a dasli of water over-head after a 
j sunny day in summer. If kept open and airy an 
insect will seldom trouble them. If kept close, even 
though in a moist atmosphere, they will have the green 
fly, and become spindly. If kept rather light, but 
warm, as in a plant stove, they will attract the red 
spider by myriads. With a cool, airy house in summer, 
and a dash from the syringe, allowing a little winter to 
fall on the stage or grouud around them, there is no 
danger. Writing for this department, I speak of it 
merely as a summer ornament under glass. I have 
found it showy and useful in a glass-covered veranda. 
IMPATIENS LATIFOLIA ALBA. 
This is a still more beautiful thing, and a much later 
introduction. It blooms even more freely than the red 
variety on the points of the young shoots, and you may, 
therefore, blow it in a three-inch pot or a twelve; it also 
grows very fast. I obtained a very small plant after 
Midsummer; rattled it on with stopping, and shifting, 
1 in a close pit, with a little heat; and in August, Sep- 
| tember, and the first half of October, it was a very 
{ pretty herbaceous bush, in a twelve-inch pot in the 
greenhouse. The flowers are large, pure white, aud pro¬ 
duced in great abundance. As it seemed more tender 
than the red, I gave it a little peat in its later shiftings. 
| The habit of the plant is good, close, aud compact, and 
I the foliage neat and well coloured. It strikes easily in a 
very few days. Valuing it chiefly as a good greenhouse 
ornament, 1 will try it in winter, in a night temperature 
of 45°, and keeping it rather dry; but in case it will not 
stand that, I will keep a few cuttings in a temperature a 
little higher. I am the more inclined to this, as I forget 
all that has beon said as to when and where it came 
from. The habit, in such a house, and the colours, are 
both desirable. During the dull weather, lately, some 
of the leaves have fallen; and the flowers are neither so 
bright, nor half tire size they were a fortnight ago. 
BENTAS CARNEA. 
This is another beautiful suffruticose evergreen, her¬ 
baceous plant, from South Africa, with corymb-like 
terminal bunches of small wax-like lilac flowers, but 
which is never seen to advantage, when kept as it 
generally is in a plant-stove. An intermediate house in 
spring, and a cool, airy position after the flower-buds 
appear, are the circumstances in which it flourishes to 
advantage. I feel myself often bothered with colours, 
and imagine sometimes that my bumpology must be at 
fault in this respect. Sometime ago 1 was visited by a 
respectable farmer, who told me he could not distinguish 
colours at all, and his friends verified the fact. The 
most he could ever do was to think he could discover 
some difference between a red coat and a black one on 
the backs of those that were riding after the hounds. 
This seemed very strange, and that, too, in the case of a 
man well versed in literary aud scientific life. Now, the 
most of the books, and some of my friends, will style 
the colour of the flowers of this plant pink, while, to my 
eye, it has scarcely ever got beyond a decent lilac. Bo 
this as it may, it is a pretty thing when grown as a 
compact bush in an open, airy, cool temperature, and 
then the slightest tinge of pink may be observable. I 
have, therefore, used it chiefly in the greenhouse for 
summer decoration ; but the basis of my operations is 
allowing it to become a deciduous plant in the winter 
months. In a cool greenhouse, the leaves will lose 
their greenness by the middle of October, at least 
in such a season as this. In a house with no higher 
temperature than 45° they will be quite yellow, or 
have fallen off by the end of November. lu such a 
temperature, but now and then nearing 50°, the plants, 
if kept rather dry, will remain safe until Eebruary, 
when those who intend growing it well would require to 
have a forcing house, a pit, propagating frame, &c., 
commanding a temperature of lrom 55° to 05°. Here 
tho plant, after slight pruning, should bo put, heat 
applied gradually, and, when tho buds are advancing 
freely, watered, and ere long shifted in aerated soil. The 
upper shoots, when three inches long, may be slipped 
off close to the old stem, cut clean across, and inserted 
in sandy soil roTmd the sides of a well-drained pot, and 
then the pot plunged in such a hotbed. The shoots left 
form the skeleton for the future plant. A few days 
after the extra shoots as cuttings are removed, the plant 
should bo shifted, getting rid of the most. of the old 
soil, and using fresh compost, and prumng-in any bad 
roots. Put in the above heat again (the bottom-heat, it 
procurable, being from 5° to 10° higher), and as soon 
as growth is proceeding freely examine your shoots, stop 
them, and tie them down, so as to get the necessary 
number of shoots to start at once that you wish the 
plants to have, recollecting that each of these will have 
its terminal bunch of bloom. As a guide, even here, 
it is necessary to mention, that when continuous and 
early blooming, rather than a great and uniform show 
all over the plant at the same time, arc the objects, then 
you need not prosecute the stopping too closely; to 
obtain a great number of shoots uniform in size—as 
supposing you had only six or eight shoots, these would 
yield you an equal number of masses of bloom, and, 
before they were faded, the upper buds from the axils of 
