160 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
leaves of Euphorbia fastnosa, Oxalis Barrelieri , Ficus , Cyclamen , 
Polyanthus , Mesembryanthemum; also, pieces of a leaf of the 
Agave Americana , tufts of Pinus , &c., and all without the aid of 
a previously formed bud. 
Pure charcoal acts excellently as a means of curing unhealthy 
plants. A Doryanthes excelsa, for example, which had been 
drooping for three years, was rendered completely healthy in a 
very short time by this means. An orange tree, which had the 
very common disease in which the leaves become yellow, acquired 
within four weeks its healthy green colour, when the upper surface 
of the earth was removed from the pot in which it was contained, 
and a ring of charcoal of an inch in thickness strewed in its place 
around the periphery of the pot. The same was the case with the 
Gardenia. 
I should be led too far, were I to state all the results of the ex¬ 
periments which I have made with charcoal. The object of this 
paper is merely to show the general effect exercised by this sub¬ 
stance on vegetation ; but the reader who takes particular interest 
in this subject, will find more extensive observations in the Allge- 
meine Deutsche Garteuzeitung , of Otto and Dietrich, in Berlin. 
The charcoal employed in these experiments was the dust-like 
powder of charcoal from firs and pines, such as is used in the forges 
of the blacksmiths, and may be easily procured in any quantity. 
It was found to have most effect when allowed to lie during the 
winter exposed to the action of the air. In order to ascertain the 
effects of different kinds of charcoal, experiments were made upon 
that obtained from the hard woods and peat, and also upon animal 
charcoal, although I foresaw the probability that none of them 
would answer so well as that of pine wood, both on account of its 
porosity and the ease with which it is decomposed. It is super¬ 
fluous to remark, that in treating plants herein described, they 
must be plentifully supplied with water, since the air, having such 
free access, penetrates and dries the roots, so that unless this pre¬ 
caution is taken, the failure of all such experiments is unavoidable. 
The action of charcoal consists primarily in its preserving the 
parts of the plants with which it is in contact, whether they be 
roots, branches, leaves, or pieces of leaves, unchanged in their vital 
power for a long space of time, so that the plant obtains time to 
develop the organs which are necessary for its further support and 
propagation. There can scarcely be a doubt, also, that the chai- 
