222 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
begin. A space, 18 feet long and 8 feet broad, was excavated 
to the depth of 1 foot in a perfectly open situation, unsheltered 
in any direction ; the bottom of this hole was covered over with 
about 3 or 4 inches of broken pots, stones, and other material 
suitable for forming a drainage to the bed ; in addition to this, 
another and deeper hole was sunk on the outside, and filled in 
like manner, being intended to act as a receiver of the super¬ 
fluous water from the bed, the latter was filled about 3 inches 
above the surrounding surface with fibrous peat chopped toge¬ 
ther and mixed with a large quantity of broken stones, charcoal, 
bones, silver sand, and all the pieces of sticks, roots, &c. con¬ 
tained in it, and being pressed moderately firm, the plants were 
placed in it at once. This was the latter end of April, and the 
weather being very fine then, no apprehensions of frost were 
entertained. The kinds selected were 3 plants of Depressa, 5 
of Tricolor in varieties, 9 of Ventricosa and varieties, 1 Hart- 
nelli, 1 Aristata, 1 Beaumontia, 1 Irbyana, 1 Hybrida, 1 Wil- 
moreana, and 1 Jasminiflora alba. These were all small plants in 
sixty-sized pots; they were in a healthy growing condition all 
of them, except the Beaumontia and two of the Ventricosas; 
and odd enough they looked when first placed out, for you see 
I had allowed each plant a space of 2 square feet, and at that 
time they did not occupy much more than so many inches, and 
many were the jokes I was obliged to laugh at in consequence. 
However, the case is altered, for on the whole they now stand 
as thick or nearly so as you would recommend to place plants 
of their size that w T ere growing in pots. With the exception of 
the Beaumontia which died outright, and one of the Ventricosas 
that was sickly when planted, all of them have made truly asto¬ 
nishing progress, and that too without any other attention than 
an occasional watering when first planted, and the necessary 
tieing into shape ; for being determined to test the method as 
fully as possible, they were allowed to stand without covering 
of any kind ; in fact, some apprehension was excited by the con¬ 
tinued wet weather of the past summer, but the soil in which 
they stood being very pervious, and the hole on the outside 
drawing the water from the bottom of the bed, thej^ stood un¬ 
harmed, and never appeared to have more than they could 
properly appropriate. It was on account of the presence of so 
much moisture that I deemed it essentially necessary that it 
should remain uncovered even in the brightest sun-light, for 
