120 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
November 14. 
] bottom-heat; when all tliey required was to tumble into 
j one end of it a dozen harrowfuls of sweet dung and 
leaves, or a less quantity of tan, and shut this part off 
from the rest by a moveable wooden division. There 
is no difficulty in thus making as many different 
temperatures in a pit as you have lights. If, notwith¬ 
standing your care, the plant should not come up to 
your expectations in May, June, and July, the stronger 
shoots had better be cut back before Midsummer, so 
that the plant may be made more bushy; shift the 
plant, if necessary, jvhen the young shoots have broken 
freely, using, chiefly, fibry loam and sweet leaf-moulu, 
with a little peat and silver-sand ; keep close for a few 
weeks; gradually give more air and lull light, to ripen 
the shoots; keep dryish and cool in winter, and give a 
high moist temperature in spring, from 70° to 80°, and 
we hope you will be rewarded in 1856, though rather 
sanguine that you will not be disappointed in 1855. 
6. 2ECHMEA MINIATA DISCOLOR, and VrIESIA SPLEN- 
dens. —“These were recommended by a London nursery¬ 
man. Are they good things? In what number shall I 
find their culture ?” To the last, I reply, that they have 
been frequently noticed. To the first, I reply, that 
they are very interesting indeed, being low-growing, 
tropical plants ; very attractive, from their foliage, their 
flower-spikes, and the flowers themselves. It would be 
easy to write a short essay on each genus, especially if 
the species were all minutely described; and yet, when 
all was done, it would require some microscopic agency 
to find in what the chief difference in their required 
treatment consisted. You have, no doubt, seen young 
Pine-apple plants growing freely, and the nearer you 
approach the culture of them in your general treatment 
of JEchmeas and Yriesias, in a young state, the better you 
will succeed. Like the Pine-apple, each single shoot, or 
stem, only flowers once. When the flower-stem decays, 
and the plant is still kept in a growing heat, suckers 
will be thrown out at the base of the plant. These 
should be encouraged by water, and a moist, warm 
atmosphere, leaving the old stems to remain until they 
are half-grown, or nearly so, and allowing water to 
stand in the hollow of its leaves, if it does not become 
fetid. When the suckers get to that size, the old stem 
should be cut away; and now you make as many plants 
as you have suckers, by dividing them, and growing 
each in a five-inch pot or so, or by repotting the whole 
mass, be the suckers two or a dozen in number. It 
matters not whether single, or a number in a larger pot, 
each fresh stem, or sucker, that has grown, and received 
part of a ripening process this summer, will bloom early 
the next, or in spring, when the same process must be 
repeated. When growing, and approaching the blooming 
state, the retention of water at the base of the leaves 
will be an advantage rather than otherwise, unless it 
becomes fetid, when it should be dislodged, by turning 
the head of the plant topsy-turvy. No doubt, in its 
native jungles, the plant thus receives much of its 
necessary moisture from the collection of the heavy 
dew-drops. In winter, the plant should be oftener 
reversed, to get rid of this collected moisture. Keeping 
these matters in view, the following will include the 
main points of treatment. 
1. l’otting. —At all times, but especially when young, 
small pots should be preferred to large ones. Drainage 
must be particularly attended to; a good portion of that 
may consist of well-burned charcoal, The best time, 
after the first year, and the plant has bloomed, is when 
the suckers have grown some size, say from three to six 
inches in length. Oue potting, in a pot from four to six 
inches in diameter, will generally be sufficient for a 
young plant before it blooms. 
2. Compost. —This should consist of nearly equal parts 
of fibry peat and leaf-mould not too much decomposed, 
lightened and made open with bits of charcoal and 
silver-sand. As the plant increases in size, so as to form 
a specimen with many suckers, or stems, a little fibry 
loam, in pieces ranging from the size of a field bean to 
a walnut, will cause the flower-sterns to come stubbier 
and stronger. 
3. General Treatment. —After potting, a little bottom- 
heat will be serviceable,—such as a tan-bed, or any other 
decomposing material, with a temperature of 80°. Slight 
syringings overhead, with water of the same temperature, 
will also be an advantage. If a little water lodges in the 
axils of the leaves, so much the better; only it should not 
remain more than eight days without being changed. 
As autumn comes on the pot should be raised, bit by 
bit, for several days, out of the bark-bed, until it stands 
upon its surface, and is fully exposed to the sun. Any 
place, a shelf, or on a bed, will do for it iu winter, com¬ 
manding a temperature of from 50° to 60° at night, with 
a rise from sunshine, all the light possible, at this 
season, and just as much moisture as will keep the plant 
from shrinking away. In spring, the temperature should 
be gradually increased 10°, with a moist atmosphere in 
proportion, and though again, the plant would rejoice 
in a bark-bed, or a little bottom-heat, fine specimens of 
them have been procured from the open shelf of the 
plant-stove. 
7. Allamanda Schottit. —“ A country gardener 
blooms Allamanda Cathartica very well; succeeds with 
Schottii, when planted out in a plant-stove; but neither 
be nor his neighbours can bloom it in a pot; which 
seems very odd, when they read the reports of the Lon¬ 
don shows, and find it in almost every stand.” Is the 
plant in the pot anything of the same age as the one 
planted out in a plant-stove ? I do not, by any means, 
say that it is a rule without an exception ; but as a 
general thing, this plant does not bloom freely until 
some three or four seasons old, from the cutting. I do 
not expect to bloom it well myself for some time, as 
my plant is very small, and my convenience limited ; 
but some of my friends, who kindly make up many 
of my deficiencies, bloom it well, and almost as easily 
and profusely as Cathartica. Again, are the shoots of 
the plant grown in the pot anything so thin, and equally 
exposed to sunlight to the shoots grown in the plant- 
stove and plauted out; or if as thin, are they anything 
as luxuriant? Strong shoots, with plenty of room 
between them for the leaves to expand, arc better signs 
of success than many smaller shoots, and in a thick 
mass. I believe this correspondent knows all this quite 
as well, if not better, than I do; but as these matters 
are intended to be generally interesting, I will just 
mention the main points of culture, commencing from 
the present. 
The plants should now, as soon as convenient, be 
subjected to a comparative rest, placing them in an open 
situation, giving them no more water than will keep 
them from flagging, and a night temperature, ranging 
from 50° to 55°. In a very sunny day, the leaves should 
have a slight dewing from the syringe in preference to 
soaking the roots. By midwinter, at farthest, the plant 
should be pruned. This operation should be regulated 
by the state and age of the plant. If young, and the 
wood tolerably ripe, and the shoots rather thin, little or 
no pruning will be required ; but the shoots should be 
kept slowly growing in winter, and faster in spring and 
summer. In the case of older, well-established plants, 
pruning must be resorted to for giving room, as the 
flowers are produced on the shoots of the current 
season’s growth, proceeding from well ripened buds on 
the shoots of the previous year. Some shoots may, 
therefore, be cut back to within a foot or two of their 
origin last year, and others to within a few buds. 
However cut, the leaves at the buds left should be 
preserved, and this, together with the roots having 
loss to do, will swell, and so far ripen the buds left. 
