CULTURE OF ROSES IN TOTS. 
129 
in a separate state ; liquid manure, consisting of the drainings of 
dunghills, or formed from animal excrement or decayed hotbed 
manure, has been proved to be very beneficial, nitrate of soda 
has also been strongly recommended, and may be best applied 
in a liquid form ; in these cases (especially in the latter) the ut¬ 
most caution is necessary not to use it too strong, as many 
plants have been found to suffer severely by inattention to this 
important point. These stimulating fluids should moreover be 
always used in a very diluted state, and in this state they ruay 
be applied to strong and vigorous plants once in two or three 
applications ; but to more delicate ones, and to all at an earlier 
period of their existence, they must be much more cautiously and 
very sparingly applied and only at considerable intervals. It 
cannot be too strongly insisted upon in the culture of all plants 
under any circumstances, that if supplied with a greater amount 
of food than is really necessary, not only will the action of the 
manuring substances be impeded, but a positive injury to the 
vital functions will be the result, just as the animal stomach be¬ 
comes disordered and impaired by being overloaded with food, 
and the richer the quality of this food^ the more injurious will 
be that result. To plants in pots, this consideration is of infinite 
importance, an excess of food applied to them has not an equal 
chance of draining away or of being diffused in the surrounding 
medium, and consequently the roots are forced into excesses 
which under the increased temperature and refracted light of a 
plant-house, lead to more than ordinarily injurious results. 
The elucidation of the culture of these plants in pots involves 
a consideration of climate, and in this particular there is ample 
scope for variation of treatment. It is no part of the piesent 
inquiry, as I have already observed, to enter into what is re¬ 
garded as the “ forcing” of roses, that is to say, the production 
of them out of their natural season ; but it is nevertheless ne¬ 
cessary to provide them some protection, and at least ‘a local 
habitation,” if they are to be bloomed in that peilection which 
throughout this paper I have been anticipating. The most 
suitable structure then which could be devised would be a small 
pit, facing the south-east, just large enough to admit of a path 
at the back in the inside, and heated by means of a branch from 
some contiguous hot-water apparatus; the plants would occupy 
a platform between this pathway and the front of the pit, and 
