For several weeks past I have been on the tiptoe of expectation over an article on the growth, culture and habits of the Cactus, that my Cactus correspondents have been telling me would appear in "this month's Gardeners' Monthly".

I have just read that article, which is very good and excellent as far as it goes. The writer says the best way to treat them (the Cactuses), is to put them away where the temperature does not fall below 450. I do not know how cold it is in Canada at 450, but here in Utah, Echinocereus phoeniceus, Echinocactus Simpsonii, Mamillaria vivipara, var. Neo Mexicana, and Opunta Mis-souriensis, stand out in their native places and do well with frost 22° below zero; but they grow upon well-drained, gravelly hillsides, and are usually covered with snow from Christmas to the following May. So much for the iron-clad Cactus. Then there are Cereus Engelmanni, Echinocactus Whippleii, Echinocactus Sileri, Echinocactus cylindraceus, Opuntia rutila, Mamillaria chloran-tha, that grow with the Agave Utahense on the sand-stone ledges, in many instances with hardly sand enough to cover their roots, and there are two Cactuses that stand out exposed to the fierce heat of the summer sun where hardly a lizard is to be found, with the thermometer down to zero in the winter.

In the Beaver Dam Mountains, west of St. George, growing in the sand on the limestone ledges with Yucca brevifolia are Echinocactus Johnsoni and E. LeContii. In this locality there is but little snow, but the thermometer often falls within ten degrees of zero.

The question has been asked of me very often lately as to when it rains and when it does not. Snows and rain commence about the 15th of December and continue until about the first of May, when a period of drought sets in, lasting until about the 24th of July. This being a holiday, it always rains, and it continues to rain until the last of August. At the higher altitude? where the first-named Cactus grow, frost usually follows a rain, let it be at what season of the year it may. Last night, June nth, ice formed ¼ inch thick, following a very unusual rain storm that came off last week.

A few years since I had a number of Agave Utahense that I wanted to keep until I could get orders for them. I planted them with a Mamillaria vivipara in a box of clay soil, and told the lady in charge of the place to water them occasionally. I was away for some two or three months. When I returned to get my Agave plants to send away, I found them swimming in water and was informed that they had been sitting on a back porch where they got the morning sun only with a pail of water from the well every morning. I expected that they were ruined, but to my surprise they were well supplied with new roots. I have, when collecting Cactus, set out on dry ground in favorable locations what I had left over after filling orders; but I have never had the good fortune to have any of them root as well as the M. vivipara set with the Agave noted.

A number of the readers of the Gardeners' Monthly have asked me to tell them about the soil that our Cactus grow in. Cereus Engelmanni arrives to its greatest perfection on the ragged edges of limestone ledges with a soil of clay and gravel. Echinocactus Johnsonii, E. LeContii, M. chlorantha and Opuntia rutila delight in a southwesterly exposure on the side of sandy and gravelly ridges with bed rock of limestone. Echinocactus cylindraceus, E. xeranthoides, E. Whipplei, Opuntia chlorotica, M. phellosperma are found on the west side of canons facing the morning sun, but never on the east side sand on sand stone ledges generally. Echinocactus Sileri on low hills, soil rotten gypsum. Echinocactus phoeniceus, E. Simpsonii, Opuntia Mis-souriensis, gravelly soil facing to southwest, or on top of high gravelly hills about the rim of the great basin. Mamillaria vivipara Neo Mexicana, gain their greatest perfection in very tight clay soils amongst sage brush.

Ranch P. O., Kane Co., Utah, June 12th, 1885.

[This account of the kind of soil and the habits of some of our native Cactuses, will be very interesting to the lovers of these curious plants - a continually increasing circle. What Mr. Siler says about water for Cactuses we can confirm by experience. Even pot Cactuses we plant in the open ground during summer, and, whenever we have very hot weather for a few successive days, pour on the water, and it is wonderful how they seem to enjoy it.

In this section we find Mamillaria Nuttalliana, M. vivipara, Echinocactus Simpsoni and Opuntia Missouriensis entirely hardy, though singularly enough it never flowers. This peculiarity follows others. In Southern Utah the writer dug up (with the swingle-tree of a wagon, while his wife held the horses' heads) three large masses weighing 20 pounds each, of Echinocactus phoeniceus, then covered with their magnificent wine-glass-shaped flowers. On returning from the Pacific they were found safely at home. Though they are in charming health, they have not had a flower the past two summers - though the dry mesa soil on which they were growing, has been imitated as nearly as possible. Under culture we cannot always rely for success on imitating natural conditions. We must learn from experience. - Ed. G. M.]