iSyi.l THE DRAINAGE OF POTS, &c. 41 



THE DRAINAGE OF POTS, &c. 

 Probably, of all otlier professions, that of the gardener has most to 

 do with necessary evils, which are ever the cause of anxiety and trouble 

 to him, from the time he gets up in the morning till he lays him down 

 to rest at night : day after day, month after month, year after year, 

 Sabbath-days and week-days, have those evils to be continually taken 

 in hand, and made the means whereby he attains his object ; for though 

 he may become so accustomed to them through daily and hourly con- 

 tact as not to recognise them as such, still such they are : glass-houses, 

 heating apparatuses, and all the other artificial appliances by which 

 successful results are arrived at, would be much better done without, if 

 such or any results could possibly be gained without them. It very 

 often happens, however, that an evil, necessary to a certain extent, is 

 carried to an entirely needless and sometimes injurious degree ; the 

 subject of this paper is a case in point. It is a fact known to everybody 

 floriculturally biassed — excepting, perhaps, those old women (some of 

 them keen plant-growers too) who cultivate Geraniums in spoutless 

 tea-pots, and Fuchsias in flower-pots, the drainage-holes of which have 

 been most innocently corked up — that efficient drainage is a most im- 

 portant essential in the successful cultivation of pot-plants ; in fact, 

 numbers fail with plants which stand without repotting for any con- 

 siderable time through neglecting sufficiently to secure the compost in 

 which the plant is growing from penetrating to and getting mixed up 

 with the drainage, so laying the foundation to a sodden, soured mass, 

 which in time results in death to every root of the plant, and, as a 

 matter of course, the plant itself. However, this is not the part of 

 the subject we wish to write about, but the common practice of drain- 

 ing all sorts of plants after the same fashion, without discrimination 

 as to their varied requirements, giving soft-wooded plants of all kinds 

 and for all purposes the same treatment in this respect as that given 

 to hardwooded and species of a slow growth. 



The most glaring sample of this malpractice is to be found in the 

 treatment of those plants professionally designated *' bedding stuff." 

 The mode of procedure in favour with some is something like this : — 

 in the beginning of autumn. Geranium cuttings are crowded together 

 into boxes some 4 inches in depth ; that efficient drainage may be 

 secured, "crocks," nearly an inch deep, are placed along the bottom, 

 with a layer of grassy turf or moss laid above them to keep all 

 "square;" when early spring arrives they are "potted ofifinto 3-inch 

 or 4-inch pots, as the case may be, the best part of the roots having 

 been left amongst the drainage of the box ; the pots are also filled up 

 with crocks and moss to a depth dependent on the judgment of the 



