JOURNAL OF HORTIODLTDBE AND COTTAGE GARDBNEE. 



[ April la, 1877. 



planted ont, and the leaves become curled as if attacked by green 

 tiy. This is the result of careless planting and poor soil ; and 

 although the plants may make a fresh start and then bloom, 

 the flowers are never so fine aa those on plants which were 

 never checked. The plants need not be more than 12 inches 

 apart. During dry hot weather they are greatly benefited by a 

 mulching over the roots of short dung, or grass from the lawn. 



For late flowering the seed must be sown in May, and the 

 seed may either be sown broadcast or in rows like Cabbage or 

 Ouion seed. I always sow the seed so thin that the plants do 

 not r( quire to be thinned or transplanted from the seed bed 

 until they are planted where they are to bloom, and I think 

 they Biilf-r less in dry weather iu this way than when shifted 

 often. Watering has to be well attended to in the case of this 

 latter sowing. Some plants throw up a cluster of flowers, but 

 when the finest " show " blooms are wanted these must be 

 reduced to two or three on a plant. Those who have no 

 means of raising early plants need never fail in having plenty 

 of late Asters. In buying seed it is generally had in packets, 

 and these contain twelve sorts which when well selected in- 

 clude every known colour. Amongst those which I have grown 

 I have selected Betteridge's Globe (Juilled, Finest German 

 Quilled, Dwarf Bouquet, Dwarf Chrysanthamum-flowered and 

 New Victoria for the main display. The dwarf varieties are 

 most suitable for small beds. — Floeist. 



COMPOSTS FOR POT PLANTS. 



One of the most important matters connected with the cul- 

 tivation of exotic flowers and fruits — which have in this 

 country to be cultivated under glass, in pots or restricted 

 borders, and have, as a consequence, to be constantly supplied 

 with water by artificial means — must always be the constitu- 

 ents of the soil in which they are potted or planted. Although 

 certain plants appear to be not over-particular as to whether 

 they are potted or planted in loam or peat as a basis for a 

 compost, yet even such plants attain to different degrees of 

 health and vigour when the soil most suited to their nature 

 preponderates. Good culture in all other respects lessens the 

 evils arising from a misapplication of soils ; but when a plaut 

 finds its element in this respect, and is otherwise properly 

 cared for, its character is developed with more freshness and 

 vigour. 



We believe it is correct to say that the chief features of the 

 horticulture of the present, aa compared to that of the past, ia, 

 that complicated mixtures of soils and manures are less used 

 and believed in as " the secret " of successful culture, and 

 that the tendency is still in the direction of simplicity in this 

 respect. Mixtures, when compounded from fancy and with 

 little knowledge of the elements of chemistry, may, or may 

 not, be compounds of evil. Alter many years of exteneive 

 practice, we are thoroughly convinced that the mixing of dif- 

 ferent sorts of soils and manures for potting plants in general, 

 is an evil to be avoided; and feel certain that a plan!, that 

 thrives in loam will thrive still better in it ultimately — make a 

 more healthy, iraitful, and older plant— if there are no animal 

 or organic manures mixed with the turfy loam. We, of course, 

 mean all organic manures of a rapidly changing character 

 which putrifies, even though in that process the substances 

 formed are highly important to plant life. All such, and 

 humus of every description, are best left out of the soil in 

 which all the slower and more hardwooded plants are potted, 

 if they are to be healthy, floriferous, and long-lived. By so 

 doing the soil runs far less risk of becoming what is well un- 

 derstood by the term soured, and, of course, unhealthy. It 

 may be asked, Are the excrements of animals and decaying 

 vegetation not beneficial to such plants? Uudoubtedly they 

 are, but not mixed iu with the soil in a narrow deep vessel 

 like a flower pot. Such highly stimulating, and more or less 

 fermenting, substances are best applied as a top-dressing when 

 the plants require it. The turfy loam generally used for pot- 

 ting furpo-ies, at first, much organic matter of a less rapidly 

 changiug (because to some extent dilTerently incorporated with 

 the toil), as well as of a more natural character; and, as a rule, 

 no other manure need be mixed with the ball of earth in the 

 pot, unless it be of a less rapidly changing character, such as 

 ground bones. Take, for instance, a Camellia and a Pine 

 Apple — plants of very diverse characters. They thrive splendidly 

 in light turfy loam, and require nothing else until their pots 

 get pretty well filled with roots. Then a top-dressing of rich 

 manure is of immense benefit to them, which, if mixed with 

 the soil at the time of potting, is not only not necessary bat 



positively injurious. The roots which these two plants make 

 in the loam, pure and simple — with perhaps the addition of 

 some charcoal and bones — are far more numerous and of a 

 different character to those produced iu soil made rich and 

 soft with rapidly decaying manure, iu which the roots are long 

 and less twiggy, escaping more rapidly down among the drain- 

 age into simpler and sweeter fare. 



As a rule we neglect far too much Nature's rule of potting 

 and nourishing her children. We put manure of a too gross 

 Nature into the soil ; Nature lays it on the surface. We keep 

 stones out of it far too much, as a rule ; Nature is prodigal in 

 her supply of stones. We give a narrow, deep body of soil, 

 with comparatively little surface exposed to the air, and that 

 little is far too often amass of gangrene or slime ; on the other 

 hand. Nature, as a rule, gives a shallow body of earth with a 

 great wealth of surface clothed with living verdure of some 

 sort. In all these respects we cannot in small glass houses 

 follow the lead of Nature in the culture of plants in pots, but 

 the further the departure from her ways the more likely we 

 are to be in error. We can, however, top-dress more and mix 

 less humus iu our composts. Who will say that flower pots 

 would not be better if made a little shallower and a little wider ? 

 With regard to the mixture of stones or charcoal, or clean 

 broken potsherd, this can be followed without any offence to 

 the eye or any extra space. This we have come to regard as a 

 cardinal point iu the pot-culture of nearly all plants that are 

 not of the grossest and most ephemeral kind. Who that has 

 had much to do with plant-growing and potting has not noticed 

 that a plant that has had clean crocks, or, best of all, charcoal 

 mixed to a liberal extent, with the soil in which it has been 

 potted, has always been iu a more satisfactory condition the 

 next time it required a shift, than when these substances find 

 no place iu the soil? Take an Azalea or a Camellia, and in 

 potting it fill one side of the pot with soil in which charcoal is 

 liberally mixed, and the other with soil devoid of that sub- 

 stance, and ia twelve months, when the plant needs another 

 shift, it will be found that there are double the number of 

 rootlets on the side of the charcoal to what there is on the 

 other. Wherever a lew pieces of broken pot or charcoal are 

 found in the ball of a plant, there the roots are found to muster 

 in greatest numbers and health. 



The mixing of these substances in imitation of Nature's 

 prodigality of stones is not practised to the hundredth part in 

 plant eiilture that its good effects demand. Charcoal has a 

 wondrous charm for roots, and is of the very foremost im- 

 portance iu the soil of nearly all pot-grown plants. It has a 

 beneficial mechanical effect ; has a sweetening tendency ; is 

 highly useful, absorbing ammouia and other plant food from 

 air and water, and from all decaying substances in its vicinity ; 

 while its owu character ij most unchangeable. It prevents 

 stagnant water; and bf-iog such a storehouse, it is a safeguard 

 against extreme drouglit. Iu the case of nine plants ont of 

 every ten it would be well it charcoal formed a fifth part of 

 the whole compost iu which they are potted. — {Tlie Gardener.) 



ASPECTS OF NATURE— MARCH. 



With March our twelvemonths floral garland is complete. 

 With fickle April our aspects of the mouth began, and with the 

 first truly flowery time of the year we end our contemplation 

 of Nature in her uncultivated wilds. 



This year spring has been unusually bountiful iu furnishing 

 us with blossoms and May flowers, which as a rule open only 

 to bid farewell to the boisterous mouth, and reserve their full 

 beauty for the genial sunshine, and showers of April have been 

 with us for weeks. The earlier days of March were beueUoial 

 in that they brought a change from the too great mildness of 

 temperature of January and February to a frost and cold wind, 



"Which, like tlie tyrannous breatliing o( tl)6 north. 

 Checks all our buds from blowing." 

 A timely chock, which promised to rid us of a few March 

 flowers and render more umbrageous and blossomy our sum- 

 mer bowers. 



Perhaps there is no month in the whole twelve which has 

 given rise to a greater number of proverbs than March. The 

 almost incalculable benefit of dry weather at this season being 

 embodied in such sayings as — "A dry cold March never begs 

 bread," " a wet March makes a sad autumn," "a bushel of 

 March dust is worth a king's ransom; " nor do the character- 

 istics of a blustering March appear to have suffered much 

 change, for the ancient Itomaus named the season after the 

 roughest and rudest of the famed Olympian gods. 



