THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
August 
254 
tiful succulents exist in our Cape colony, that gar¬ 
deners have succeeded in bringing their crassulas to 
that extraordinary state of beauty for which they are 
now so conspicuous at our metropolitan exhibitions, 
particularly those in July. Messrs. Erasers, nursery¬ 
men at the Lee Bridge nursery, near London, who 
are so celebrated for winning the best prizes at these 
exhibitions, were the first to shew to us in England 
what could be done with these crassulas by superior 
cultivation. Old as I was when they exhibited their 
first crassulas a few years since, I was so struck with 
them that I could not get the first impression of them 
out of my head for many days, and I even dreamed 
of them; and yet an intimate friend, well versed in 
these things, told me since that far superior single 
heads of bloom of the crassula are yearly brought to 
the flower-markets of Paris. Now, there is a prin¬ 
ciple involved here which 1 ought to have explained 
last week when writing on the autumn hydrangea 
cuttings, for I always find that when a principle, 
however simple in itself, that is new to me is well 
explained, that I learn more from a few sentences 
than from a long disquisition of our ordinary craft 
prescriptions. Almost all plants, except annuals, 
lay by a store of nourishing matter over and above 
what is needed for their own consumption in a given 
season, and even annuals are not exempt from this 
law, which appears almost universal in the vegetable 
kingdom, for they, at least some of them, require a 
certain period of growth to store up matter for the 
production of their fruit or seeds. Gardeners take 
advantage of this law, and in the case of many 
plants which, like our crassula, make a growth one 
season on which the flowers are produced in the fol¬ 
lowing season, they allow the season’s growth to be 
nearly completed before they take the cuttings from 
the mother plant, and by that time the extra matter 
necessary to produce large handsome flowers is al¬ 
ready stored up in the vessels of the shoots; and by 
taking in August good stout cuttings of such plants, 
as cacti, hydrangeas, crassulas, and many other plants 
that will root quickly, it is found in practice that all 
the difference it makes to these shoots is that they 
can produce their flowers better with the assistance 
of their own new roots than they would if left on the 
parent plant, from which all the flowering shoots have 
to draw their supply. Thence it is that little bits of 
these plants can be made to bloom in very small 
pots—the pot and the plant being out of all propor¬ 
tion to the size of the flower. 
But to return to the crassula in their native home. 
At the Cape of Good Hope they form but a section of 
an immense number of different plants which na¬ 
ture has provided with thick, soft stems and leaves, 
in which during the rainy season they store up a 
large quantity of undigested food, which they elabo¬ 
rate at their leisure for many months afterwards un¬ 
der the scorching rays of a vertical sun. The cactus 
families represent this form of vegetation in the new 
world, and what a striking analogy all of them pre¬ 
sent to those animals which chew the cud! In a few 
weeks or months they swallow food enough to serve 
them the year round; and, for the better preserva¬ 
tion of this food, we are told by physiologists that 
these succulent plants are differently constituted from 
other plants in their breathing and perspiring organs, 
for all plants are known to perform functions very 
near akin to our modes of breathing and perspiring. 
These succulents principally grow on dry hot rocks 
or plains where the more common forms of vegeta¬ 
tion could not exist; they may be considered as formed 
lor the express purpose of supplying the wild ani¬ 
mals in regions where neither other food nor water 
can be procured. To enable them to bear up against 
such difficulties, succulent plants are chiefly furnished 
with an unusually tough skin; and, to prevent their 
parting with the scanty moisture which they collect 
from the burning soil, the pores by which they per- 
spire are very few and imperfectly formed, so that 
the full ardour of the brightest sun does not incom¬ 
mode them much, but is even essential to bring about 
their full maturity. These natural facts point out to 
us the necessary steps in their successful cultivation. 
We have seen that perspiration takes place very 
slowly through their tough skin, therefore it is but 
rational that they should be sparingly watered at all 
times, and not at all during winter, unless it is a se¬ 
vere one, when fire-heat may render it necessary; and 
even then succulents of every kind should be very 
carefully watered, and placed as near the glass as pos¬ 
sible, for in their native place they are subject to in¬ 
tense light during their inactivity, at which time the 
food they obtained during the periodical rains is 
slowly digested, forming those secretions which en¬ 
able them to flower so gorgeously. Here, when we 
increase them for flower-beds, we make short cuttings, 
about the end of August or in September, of the tops 
of the young shoots which have not flowered, and, 
after the cuttings are rooted, they are placed singly 
into small pots, and grown till the end of October, 
when the pots are filled with roots. From this time 
to the end of February they are kept in a cool green¬ 
house on a shelf close to the glass, and seldom re¬ 
ceive more than two or three waterings during the 
whole winter. As soon as they begin to move in the 
spring they are stopped at about three or four inches 
from the pot, and a few of the top leaves are taken 
off to facilitate the growth of new shoots. As soon 
as these are well formed they are thinned, so as to 
leave but from three to five or six shoots on each 
plant, according to its strength; and, as soon as the 
shoots are two inches long, the plants are shifted into 
pots a size or two larger, in a mixture of yellow loam 
and pounded bricks, well drained. I put little stress 
on the kind of soil used for them, only this mixture 
retains moisture longer than any other, therefore we 
escape the danger from frequent waterings. 
In large places gardeners experience more mishaps 
from injudicious watering than from all other causes 
of failure put together, as in hot dry weather inex¬ 
perienced hands are obliged to be entrusted with a 
share of the “watering” to help on the work; but, 
where few plants are kept, I see no reason why cras¬ 
sulas should not be grown in as rich a soil as the 
pelargoniums, if an effectual provision is made for 
keeping it open by the use of charcoal, lime-rubbish, 
or the usual pounded crocks. 
After the spring potting we indulge these crassulas 
with a little more than greenhouse-heat, by placing 
them for two or three weeks in a peach-house or 
vinery, and this could be imitated in a close pit, for 
we like to have them in full vigour by the middle of 
May, because the earlier in the summer they com¬ 
plete their annual growth the more time and sun they 
have to finish their ripening process, thus coming as 
near to their natural condition as our climate will 
allow. About midsummer or before the beginning 
of July their growth is finished, and they are then 
turned out of doors, and plunged in sand close to the 
front wall of any of the hothouses, where the heat in 
the dog days often ranges from 80° to 100°, and where 
little rain can get at them, the spouting which re¬ 
ceives the water from, the roof passing over their 
1 leads. The sand in which they are plunged gets 
