226 Wisconsin State Horticultural Society. 



ets and hanging baskets are the popular contrivances for 

 displaying hanging plants. 



However well plants may be grown, much of their attrac- 

 tiveness depends upon how they are arranged, how potted, 

 how trained. Much good or bad taste may be displayed in 

 the growing of them. The same plants may produce a 

 very striking and pleasing effect, or otherwise, according 

 as they are arranged. The pots in which plants are grow- 

 ing, and even the stakes used for their support, improve or 

 detract from their appearance. We frequently see plants, 

 in themselves handsome, utterly ruined in appearance, by 

 being inserted in tin cans, originally made for and occupied 

 by preserved meats, fruits and vegetables, and by lard, etc., 

 or in tin or wooden paint pots, meat and fish kegs, and but- 

 ter tubs. These may be cheap and convenient substitutes 

 for the ordinary flower pots, but they certainly do not in 

 any manner enhance the beauty and attractiveness of the 

 plants they contain, neither do they contribute specially to 

 successful culture of plants, but, on the contrary, they 

 rather tend to make that culture precarious, for this reason : 

 Tin, or any metal may be, for practical purpose, consipered 

 non- porous. Wood, espesially when saturated with oil or 

 fatty matter, also possesses that property to a considerable 

 extent. Now, it is a well established fact, understood by all 

 experienced plant growers, that the more porous a pot is^ 

 the better, as a rule, will a plant succeed. The most suc- 

 cessful cultivators contend that a pot should be capable of 

 absorbing moisture from the soil to a considerable extent, 

 and allow it to escape into the atmosphere by evaporation, 

 thereby lessening the danger of plants sometimes baing in- 

 jured by a stagnation of an undue amount of moisture in 

 the soil. It is, therefore, better to use flower pots made of 

 clay — they are never expensive — and preference should 

 be given to soft ones. The somewhat fashionable practice 

 of painting flower pots, should seldom be resorted to ; it is 

 questionable if it ever improves their appearance. 



I have made reference to the shades used in supporting 

 plants which require it ; these are usually rough and 

 clumsy, and quite as prominent as the branches they sup- 



