270 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GC1DK 



fullest-sized pots, tubs, or boxes, do very well for several years 

 without shifting, they should from time to time, both in spring and 

 autumn, have the surface earth loosened, as well as the portion 

 nearest the pot or box all round, as deep as it can easily be reached, 

 removing the loosened old soil, filling up the deficiency with fresh 

 earth, and giving a moderate watering to settle the roots. 



When there is want of space for arranging pots during the winter 

 so as to admit abundance of light, which is indispensable to the 

 health of the plants, it will economize room to put as many plants 

 into two or three large pots (say thirty-two, or even twenty-fours or 

 sixteens) as can conveniently be done ; and with this view, small 

 plants of geraniums and the like may be procured from cuttings 

 struck late in summer or early in autumn. 



When small plants from cuttings have not been forwarded, the 

 large plants may be cut down to small dimeusions, and the roots 

 proportionately reduced. 



In the spring shifting, each of these stored plants may be placed 

 iu a separate pot and kept protected in-doors, at least during the 

 night, till the end of May or beginning of June, when the plants 

 may be turned out into the borders to bloom. Another method, 

 which we have seen successfully practised by the late lamented Mr. 

 Sweet, when there is scanty space for protecting plants in pots 

 during the winter, is, at the autumnal shitting, to plunge them in 

 the borders, taking care to have several inches thick of sharp sand 

 or forge ashes below or around the pots plunged, to prevent their 

 being too much wetted by the winter rains. Over the plants in 

 cold or frosty weather, and always at night, place an empty pot, 

 covering the hole with an oyster-shell or a bit of tile. In this way 

 Mr. Sweet could preserve in health many half-hardy plants through 

 the winter, better, as he told us, than in-doors. Of course the 

 empty pots used to cover the flowers will require careful attention 

 to place and replace them, but not more trouble than is usually taken 

 with room plants. In the management of shifting, it is for tne 

 most part to remove the plants from smaller to larger pots, with the 

 balls of earth about the roots, either altogether or at least some of 

 the old earth on the outside of the bulb, trimming away only the 

 radical fibres which are matted and dry, but taking care not to 

 disturb the principal roct near the centre. 



In this way a great portion of the excrementitious matter which 

 the smaller radicles have thrown out into the exterior soil will be 

 got rid of, which, if not removed at intervals, acts as a poison to the 

 plant — a recent discovery of great importance to be attended to in 

 every species of plant cultivation. In the meanwhile, the principal 

 roots remaining undisturbed, the growth will not be much checked 

 by the shiftings, more particularly as the heat of the weather being 

 now on the decline, and the days becoming shorter, there is less 

 stimulus to rapid growth and exhaustion of vigour by sunlight 

 and heat. 



In some instances, when individual plants or shrubs in pots 

 discover, by the decay of their top shoots, that they are in a 

 declining state, the cause may probably exist in either the main 



