86 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
In entering upon any branch of a subject which is in great 
part new, our safest plan is to take along with us as our guides 
those principles which are well established in such branches of 
the subject as are better known, and which are as general in their 
application as possible. Now, in the culture of those flowers that 
form the chief ornaments of our collections, and that include 
almost all florist-flowers, the plan is to establish and maintain the 
plant as nearly as possible in circumstances similar to those in 
which it is placed in the land of its nativity. We make our 
composts, as much as we can, in accordance with the native soil 
of the plant ; but as there are some of the other circumstances 
which we cannot imitate so closely, and as there must be harmony 
in all that acts upon the plant, or is acted upon by it; and in 
this the modification is a matter not of known principle, but of 
experience which has to be acquired by the individual ; and it is 
in this skill in these modifications, that the superiority of a 
first-rate florist consists. 
After the soil, the next consideration is the seasonal applica¬ 
tion of the two grand stimuli of moisture and of heat, together 
with the relative degree of moisture, and generally speaking of 
heat, in the particular spots udiere the plant naturally grows 
most strongly, and flow T ers most abundantly. 
Moisture and heat, to a great extent, act and re-act upon each 
other ; and though the varying position of the sun, and of the 
length of the days and nights, is a sort of general principle, 
though nowhere obeying the law which we would deduce from 
the latitude, yet we must be regulated by local causes. Thus, for 
instance, in tropical climates, the humidity is divided into alter¬ 
nating periods ; and the greatest heat falls upon the latter part 
of the dry period and the early part of the rainy one. Hence 
the grand season of growth and flowering falls upon the period 
of the rains, and partially on the commencement of the dry 
period; for it seems a general law, that too much humidity 
applied to plants while they are flowering and ripening their 
seeds, is unfavourable to both of these operations. We might 
infer this from the nature of the operations themselves. Moisture 
is essential to the increase of volume in the individual plant; and 
experience proves that this increase is unfavourable to flowering 
and fruiting. Therefore, in those climates to which we allude, 
the plants are so adapted, that the heat and moisture bring the 
