366 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



Drainage. — I make a point of allowing a good drainage, com- 

 posed of small brick rubbish from the kiln, about the size of a 

 hazel nut, or thereabouts. To pots called by the potters forty-eights, 

 measuring from five inches to five and a quarter across the top (for 

 there is a variation in the size at different potteries), I put one inch 

 in depth of the above drainage, and to the next size larger, called 

 thirty-twos, I increase half-an-inch, and decrease in proportion when 

 smaller pots are used for young plants. In the absence of small 

 brick rubbish, old garden-pots broken up small may be used, 

 but I give the preference at all times to the former, if it can be 

 procured without inconvenience. 



Seed. — I generally sow the seeds in the month of April, in pans 

 or boxes, placing them in a cold frame till up ; as soon as in rough 

 leaf they may be pricked out into small pots singly, and when they 

 have filled the latter with roots, shift them into the next size, 

 following the plan up till they reach a full sized plant in what are 

 called twenty -fours ; in this they will finish blooming, and furnish 

 a most desirable plant for the conservatory, greenhouse, or drawing- 

 room. 



ON THE NECESSITY OP TRENCHING, OR DEEP 

 CULTIVATION. 



|S drainage is the first step towards the permanent im- 

 provement of the soil, the trenching or deepening of it 

 may be considered the second, and, in fact, an operation 

 of indispensable utility to its fertility. By deepening 

 and loosening the soil, we enable the superfluous water 

 to pass more freely into the drains, and thereby render them more 

 efficient in performing the important duties for which they had been 

 intended. By loosening the soil we render it more porous, and 

 thereby enable it, by capillary attraction, to retain a quantity of 

 moisture within its pores sufficient for vegetation in the driest season 

 of the year, and at the time to carry off most efficiently the super- 

 fluous water in a wet, bad season. By deepening the soil we cause a 

 happy mixture of the earths, we renew our exhausted surface-soil, 

 and admit the free accession of the great natural agents — heat, light, 

 air, and water. These are matters, with the beneficial effects of 

 which every practical gardener has been intimately acquainted for 

 the last four centuries ; and upon this operation alone he depends to 

 keep his garden in the highest state of fertility. The gardener is 

 not afraid to bring up the subsoil and expose it to the winter's frost, 

 for practical experience teaches him better — that on the deepening 

 of the soil depends his successful cultivation more than on the 

 enriching properties of manures. He is fully aware that ground 

 deeply cultivated, without manure, will produce better crops than 

 shallow ground, though assisted and enriched by the best and most 

 stimulating. By deep cultivation the plants can penetrate to a 

 greater depth, in search of food, into the soil ; and dry weather has 



