244 THE FLOEAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



into small crumbs, and these top crumbs to be preferred to the stiff 

 material underneath. Lastly, half a part of bricks, tiles, or cliarred 

 rubbish, broken to the size of horse-beans. This mixture is well 

 chopped over, and used in a sufficiently moist state to become solid 

 with pressure, yet is not sticky to the fingers ; better a little too dry 

 than a little too wet. The next necessity is a wooden rammer. The 

 best rammer we ever used was the stump of an old box-tree, burnt at 

 one end into a round knob, and at the other made neat for handling 

 by a binding of tarred cord. The pots, the compost, the rammer, and 

 the plants being ready, we give a lad the task of putting in the crocks, 

 and filling the pots two-thirds full of soil. The crocking must be done 

 with care, for if the drainage is not perfect the plants will make no 

 return. We prefer two inches of drainage, but can do with one 

 good hollow crock fitting nicely over the hole, hollow side down- 

 wards. We take one of these pots, partially filled with the compost, 

 and ram the soil quite hard. The exact amount of soil, to allow 

 room for the ball of roots must be learnt by experience, and about 

 that there will be no difiiculty. The plant is turned out upon the 

 hard bed of soil thus formed in the pot, and the pot is filled in with 

 the left hand, while with the right the rammer is plied all round till 

 the plant is at last embedded in a sort of earthen wall, and there 

 will be in the six-inch pot as much soil as is usually put in one double 

 the size." 



The potting will check the further growth of the plants, although 

 they will continue to make root, and establish themselves in the new 

 soil ; and, whilst they are so doing, the cultivator's efforts must be. 

 directed to the ripening of the wood, and bringing the buds into 

 that plump and prominent state that will insure both an early and 

 strong growth, when forcing commences. 



To that end, place the plants, from this time until the end of 

 August, on a border under a south wall, each pot to be placed upon 

 a slate, or some other contrivance by which worms will be kept out; 

 and mind that no plunging or other device must be resorted to to 

 keep the sun and air from the pots, but simply place them on some 

 hard surface, and surround each pot with several short stakes, 

 placed at a little distance from it, so that the head of the plant may 

 be well opened by tying out the branches to these stakes, bending 

 them as much as possible into a horizontal position, which will have 

 the twofold effect of improving their shape and of exposing the 

 wood more thoroughly to the ripening influence of sun and air. 

 Moreover, the check to growth which the tying out will occasion 

 will cause the rising sap to swell up the buds at the base of the 

 shoots, instead of producing useless growth at the summits of the 

 rods which have been tied. A good watering should be given when 

 they are thus placed, but afterwards no more than is required to 

 prevent exhaustion, the object being to induce early rest. This will 

 be thoroughly accomplished by the end of August or early in Sep- 

 tember, when they will have to be preserved from the exciting influ- 

 ence of the autumnal rains and dews. 



To this end, place a common cucumber-frame on four large 

 flower-pots, with its back to the south; into this set the plants, 



