278 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



to more than the weight of the population of China, which 

 is the most populous country in the world. That seems in- 

 credible, but still it is accepted by botanists as being true. 



Question. How often should the soil be replenished in 

 the pots ? 



Capt. MoOKE. It depends upon the variety of the plant. 

 A mistake that most people make is in giving plants too large 

 pots, and shifting, as gardeners term it, from a small pot into 

 too large a one. It is better to make only a small shift. A 

 small plant will bloom better in a small pot than it will in a 

 large one. The reason is this, — that a plant in a pot does 

 not bloom well until the growth is checked by the size of the 

 pot ; that is, the pot gets full of roots, and the roots become 

 cramped, and that forces flowers. 



A great many of our plants and our roses we grow in j)ots 

 of the same size two or three years. We may take them out 

 of the pot and reduce the ball, and repot them in the same 

 pot. The method of growing hybrid perpetual roses is a 

 long story. It is an unnatural thing to bloom a hybrid per- 

 petual rose in the winter : it is a deciduous shrub. Decidu- 

 ous shrubs all require an annual rest. They cannot be forced 

 into bloom until they have had their rest. Deciduous shrubs 

 naturally take their rest in the winter time : they are now 

 taking their rest. If we take them up and put them into a 

 greenhouse before they have had their proper rest, we can- 

 not force their flowers : therefore, to provide against that, 

 we are growing these plants in pots. Those blooming last 

 winter we encourage to get a strong growth, and they get 

 considerable growth before it is warm enough to put them 

 out of doors. They are then plunged into the ground, 

 watered when necessary, and we get a growth in the spring. 

 We do not desire to have them make any growth after the 

 first of July : we keep them as dry as we can and not 

 have them shrink any, and that causes them to drop their 

 leaves two months ealier than other roses, and they take 

 their rest in the fall ; and now they are getting ready to 

 bloom. We have simply changed the period of growth, and 

 given them a period of rest, as they would have it naturally. 



Question. Does root-pruning tend to produce blossoms? 



Capt. MooKE. It would if they had too large a pot. It 

 amounts to precisely the same thing as cramping the roots. 



