reduced.  By the end of August, the plants are placed in a large light frame with a south aspect, except the tall-growing kinds, which are too bulky to remove.  In this frame the plants are kept till the summer is over, and are watered only about once a week should the sun be very powerful.  The lights are removed on all bright sunny days, but are kept on during wet or dull weather, and at night.  Under this treatment, many of the species assume a reddish appearance, and the thick fleshy-stemmed kinds generally shrivel somewhat.  There is no occasion for alarm in the coloured and shrivelled appearance of the plants:  on the contrary, it may be hailed as a good sign for flowers.

A common complaint in relation to Cacti as flowering plants is that they grow all right but rarely or never flower.  The explanation of this is shown by the fact that the plants must be properly ripened and rested before they can produce flowers.  On the approach of cold weather the plants which were removed to a frame to be ripened should be brought back into the house for the winter, and kept quite dry at the roots till the return of spring, when their flowers will be developed either before or soon after the watering season again commences.

Hitherto we have been dealing with those genera which have thick fleshy stems; but there still remain the genera Rhipsalis, Epiphyllum, and Phyllocactus, which are not capable of bearing the long period of drought advised for the former.  The last-mentioned genus should, however, be kept almost dry at the root during winter, and, if placed in a light, airy house till the turn of the year, the branches will ripen, and set their flower buds much more readily than when they are wintered in a moist, partially-shaded house.  During summer all the Phyllocactuses delight in plenty of water, and, when growing freely, a weak solution of manure affords them good food.  Epiphyllums must be kept always more or less moist at the root, though, of course, when growing freely, they require more water than when growth has ceased for the year, which happens late in autumn.  The same rule applies to Rhipsalis, none of the species of which are happy when kept long dry.  For the several species of Opuntia and Echinopsis, which are sufficiently hardy to be cultivated on a sunny rockery out of doors, it will be found a wise precaution to place either a pane of glass or a handlight over the plants in wet autumns and during winter, not so much to serve as protection from cold as to shield them from an excess of moisture at a time when it would prove injurious.