REMARKS ON COMPOST t'OR POT PLANTS. 79 



culty just been able to keep a plant or two from one year to another, 

 but by adopting the following sensible plan I have obtained an abundant 

 supply, and with ease kept them, and had a vigorous bloom. No 

 flower garden ought to be without them, their neat habit, beauty, and 

 particular fragrance, alike recommend them. 



" After reading all the known directions, and obtaining the best 

 information from every possible source, my efforts to obtain strong 

 and healthy plants of the Rocket were ineffectual ; I, however, after 

 many fruitless attempts, happened to stumble on a plan of my own, 

 that soon completely satisfied my ardent desires to have this favourite 

 in perfection, and it is simply this : let as many plants as can be 

 obtained the first season, be planted in a free and rich soil, in any 

 open compartment of the garden ; they must not be allowed to bloom, 

 but have every stem pinched off as it appears ; this will cause the 

 production of numerous side-shoots, which must be taken off, as they 

 form roots of their own, which may be ascertained by occasional 

 inspection, and transplanted, six inches asunder, into a bed or border 

 thai; has been previously made very rich by a liberal supply of old 

 dung, and well watered till properly established. All will go on well 

 then if the foliage is kept free from the ravages of that sluggish pest 

 so well known to all cultivators, and which eats or gnaws indiscri- 

 minately almost every herb and flower of the garden, and particularly 

 this, which is only truly valuable when grown exceedingly perfect 

 and robust, and all who have seen it so, I think, must at once admit 

 it to be a most splendid and desirable object of culture. For my own 

 part, I have grown it to two feet high, one half of which has been an 

 unbroken mass of the purest white bloom, to observe which in this 

 matured state I must confess that I can feel less pride certainly, but 

 quite an equal degree of pleasure, as wheu bending o'er the pencilled 

 beauties of a Catafalque, the well-formed truss of a Booth's Freedom, 

 or the still dearer and sweeter gem that springs from the bosom of a 

 choice Ranunculus." 



ARTICLE V. 



REMARKS ON COMPOST FOR POT PLANTS. 



BY A PRACTITIONER. 



Loam, peat, and sand, seem to be the three simples of nature, if I 

 may so call them, most requisite for our purpose ; to which, we occa- 



