In your answer to Mrs. J. S. R. Thomson, at page 106, you speak of boxes of rooted heath cuttings and give us to understand that the illiterate youth and the sand mush had "done done it," to use the darky phrase. Can this be really so? Was old Donald Beaton with his 50 years of life in harness as a head gardener playing with our inexperience when he spoke of taking single cuttings of Erica, putting in thumb pots "with peat and broken sandstone in lumps, getting finer toward the top, and at least half an inch of silver sand on the surface ?" The whole was to be surmounted with a bell glass and shaded from the sun, and the glass wiped out every morning for months - eight months he speaks of in one instance in the Journal of Horticulture of 20 years ago. Has horticulture grown since that day to the simple means you indicate? I am interested in your reply, for I used to grow Cape Heaths in England in a greenhouse suited to them. Are they to be grown in the fierce dry heats of this country ?

I have before me two trade catalogues. One tells me to water Primula sinensis sparingly and the other says "needs plenty of water." Again, certain correspondents seem to have had difficulty in raising it from seed. My experience with this plant is, that you can water it much, water it little, give it rich soil or starve it, keep it in a steady temperature or give it the jerky alterations of an amateur fired house and its bells will open at the proper time if - and it is indispensable - it has drainage. In the seedling stage it can be raised without difficulty, with drainage perfect and protection from burning sun heat. I am glad to see the Gloxinia recommended as an amateur's flower. A fifty-cent package of seed gave me several dozens of plants last summer and the bulk of them bloomed in the fall. Nothing could be more beautiful, if I except the lovely hues of that old trailer Torenia Asiatica. So. Pittsburg, Tenn.

[The Heaths in our mind when speaking were E. stricta, E. cineria, E. vagans, and E. vulgaris. These are hardy in this part of Pennsylvania, if a few dry leaves are scattered over them in the fall. With the tenderer species we have had no experience in propagating in this easy way, but have no doubt of similar success. Other Cape and Australian plants are so raised; for instance, Poly-galas, Metrosideros, Acacias, Chorozemas, Genistas, and so forth. Everything in fact of this class without distinction are placed in square boxes or round pans of sand, water-tight and placed on tables or benches in a full light greenhouse, or partially shaded one in June, July, and August. Being water-tight, they need no water, or very little as evaporation takes some away. Our present impression from what we have seen the past few years is, that there is nothing at all but will grow on this simple plan. The only art is in selecting the wood for propagating. Mature wood will not do, and in very few instances must be as much as half ripe.

Possibly our warm suns have given an advantage that Donald Beaton never had. The cuttings under this treatment seem to like hot sun. We know one amateur who was very successful with these soft wood rose cuttings, and who had no greenhouse. He used to place his saucers of sandy mush on the hot gravel path of his vegetable garden. These rose cuttings would be all fully rooted under two weeks of this treatment. - Ed. G. M].