34 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, Atiiil 19, 1850. 
slioofc, and for the flower-bud being formed at its point. 
The whole plant thus obtains a firm, instead of a suc¬ 
culent or squashy look: that very firmness makes the 
plant less susceptible of injuries during the winter. Kept 
in this dryish state, it will be quite safe anywhere where 
there is a little light, and the temperature averaging from 
35° to 40°. If it stands on a damp floor it will get moisture 
enough from it. If you place it in a higher temperature 
in winter, it may want a little water. If the temperature 
should average 50° in winter, not only would a little 
water be required, but the stimulus to grow given in the 
dark days would be apt to excite growth of wood, and 
leave your flower-bud unexpanded. Tor house treatment 
it is best to preserve the cool and dry management until 
April, or the end of March. Place in the window then ; 
the additional heat and moisture given will start the 
flower-bud, when there will be sun heat to encourage its 
growth and expansion. Prom that time, until the roasting 
and drying period in autumn, give the plant as much 
moisture as it can suck up. With plenty of moisture, it 
will find no fault with all the window-heat you can give 
it in summer. If the plant were grown in a hothouse, 
this statement would have to be modified. From 70° to 
t)0° sun heat, during the day, and from 50° to 60° at night, 
would be a good average. If the temperature, especially 
at night, were much higher, and moisture given in pro¬ 
portion, the shoots would be so juicy and succulent that 
it would be more difficult to ripen them thoroughly in 
the autumn. Hence, plants treated as window and cool 
greenhouse plants, often bloom better than those coddled 
and shaded in stoves and forcing-houses. 
The mode of pruning for succession has been referred 
to. Some growers prefer succession of plants—such as 
a plant with no shoots but flowering ones this season, 
which, cut when done flowering—say, in July, or later 
—will just start the young shoots nicely; and fresh 
soil being then given, these shoots must be kept just 
slowly growing all the winter, be grown vigorously in the 
summer of 1860, ripened in autumn, and rested in winter, 
and bloomed in 1861. Plants forced early this spring 
will finish blooming early—say, in April and May ; and 
chose kept in heat after being cut down, and forced on, 
will be strong enough to bloom later next year. As a rule, 
however, the shoots have to grow a whole season before 
they can be expected to bloom. By having a succession 
of shoots on one plant, bloom may be expected from it 
every year, as explained above, if the necessary treatment 
be given. 
It will thus be seen, that, without the necessary cx- 
planatiou, I could not say whether this Oleander wanted 
much heat or much water. These little minutiae consti¬ 
tute the elements of success. II. Fish. 
HEATING BY GAS. 
Manx persons who, like myself, have no other convenient 
means of heating their greenhouses hut by gas, are, notwith¬ 
standing the failures which have attended attempts to effect (hat 
purpose, still anxious to adopt gas, if they can do so without 
injury to their plants. If or their assistance I will give the details 
of an apparatus, which, for the last two seasons, has enabled me 
to secure my plants from frost, and, at the same time, grow 
healthily the more hardy winter flowers—as Primulas, Cyclamens, 
&c. To enable you to judge of the influence of the apparatus on 
the inmates of the greenhouse, I will describe one of them, and 
give its antecedents. 
The house was erected in the early part of 1857. At that 
time a Rose was growing against the hack wall, which had a 
western aspect partially shaded by projecting buildings. This 
Rose grew with tolerable strength, but bore no flowers when the 
house was glazed in March. I budded it with a Qloire de Dijon. 
The bud grew and flourished exceedingly; and now, after being 
exposed to gas-heating for two seasons, has, with a foliage in 
perfect health, fifty-two blossoms, the larger portion of which are 
fully expanded, and equal to the best I have seen. I believe 
scarcely any plant is more immediately influenced by injurious 
gases than the Rose. 
m ft.—> 
I will now proceed to describe the apparatus, which consists 
of a burner — a ring of brass tube—five inches and a half in 
diameter, pierced with fifteen small holes—placed four inches above 
the level of the floor. Over the burner is what I may describe 
as an inverted galvanised iron trough, nine inches wide, seven 
inches deep, and five feet long, resting on four legs four inches 
high. The burner is placed under one extremity of this trough; 
from the other end runs the chimney, which is of three-inch gal¬ 
vanised iron piping, the joints of which are not cemented. This 
rises five feet, and is then carried across the house twelve feet, 
and finally makes its exit in the kitchen chimney. Placed on the 
top of the trough over the burner is an evaporating-pan, contain¬ 
ing about three gallons. » 
This arrangement, if not ornamental, is cheap and useful, and, 
with a little expense, may be made more elegant; at any rate, it 
is entirely removed during the season when the more attractive 
flowers of summer invite visitors. The rationale of the apparatus 
appears to he as follows :—The length and sides of the cover of 
the burner affording a large radiating surface, diffuse the heat 
equally; -and this radiation, lowering the temperature of the air 
heated by the gas, so modifies the rapidity of draught, that the 
larger portion of the heat is given out before the proceeds of 
combustion finally escape. And while the ascending property of 
heated air prevents the escape of these proceeds at the open 
bottom of the trough under ordinary circumstances, in the event 
of a sudden gust of wind reversing the current in the pipe, the 
consumed air escapes before it reaches the burner, and the gas is 
not liable to be extinguished. This accident is not likely to occur 
where the pipe is carried into a chimney. 
The house is a lean-to, fourteen feet square, and thirteen feet 
high at the back.—E dmund Tones. 
Vines er.om Eyes. — I have been experimenting with all 
the different modes of propagating Vines from eyes, and find 
the following the most successful. Take strong, hard, and 
well-ripened shoots of the last year’s growth. Cut them, with 
a sharp knife, from a quarter to half an inch above a bud, and 
from an inch to a inch and a half below one, according to the 
size or strength of the shoot. Place them in an upright or 
a vertical position in sandy rich soil, and barely cover the upper 
part of the cutting. I have found cuttings formed and planted 
in this way to root with more certainty and celerity than in the 
old way of planting them in a horizontal position, with as much 
of the wood left above the hud as below it. All the wood left 
above the hud is a disadvantage, being liable to canker and rot. 
Some persons cut a notch immediately opposite to the eye, 
supposing that it expedites the rooting; hut I have found no 
advantage from it, hut rather the contrary. — J. II., Buffalo, 
N.Y. (American Gardener's Monthly.) 
