ON A NEW METHOD OF TOTTING PLANTS. 129 



existed with many as to its suitableness, but I think enough has now 

 been demonstrated in the splendid specimens so treated during the 

 last year in the collection of Mrs. Lawrence, at Ealing Park, to jus- 

 tify its adoption where there is plenty of rooir, and fine specimens be 

 the object desired. 



It does not astonish me that the " one-shift" system has already 

 called forth the doubts and opposition of people who have been so 

 long accustomed to practise, and that with the best success, a very 

 different mode of shifting pot-grown plants. As there is, however, 

 a right and a wrong way of doing everything, success or failure must 

 depend upon which of these two opposite modes guides the operation. 

 Few of those persons who sift soil for their pot-plants will adopt the 

 one-shift system or allow of its being successfully practicable, and 

 they are quite right. Roots, from their nature, diverge out hori- 

 zontally, will always (be the pet ever so large) extend towards, and 

 soon reach, the side of the pot, and that often in sifted soil, without 

 making scarcely a lateral fibre or spongiole; because it is only at the 

 sides that they can receive the necessary quantity of air and moisture, 

 and without sufficient of both a plant cannot do well. It is the ab- 

 sence of air excluded by the compact nature of the sifted soil run into 

 a mass by hand watering, that in a pot prevents the formation of roots 

 and fibres in the centre of the ball of earth ; which circumstance, 

 joined to the tendency of a body of fine but ill-drained earth to sour 

 when watered profusely, occasions the death of plants shifted into too 

 large pots by the common mode. But when unsifted soil is used, 

 thus providing for the admission of air, and guarding against the 

 possibility of the soil tunning together (as it is called); moreover, 

 pieces of porous stone are intermixed with the soil to form reservoirs 

 of moisture and air, and at the same time barriers to make the roots 

 deviate and divide in their course before they reach the side of the 

 pots. To this is added attention to proper drainage, without which 

 but comparatively few terrestrial plants will do well ; but when so 

 treated and have suitable soil, they progress as when grown in their 

 natural habitats, and become the finest specimens. And it gives 

 them the same means of attaining an early and luxuriant maturity in 

 puts ; seeing that, in many places, there is no convenience for having 

 appropriate borders or beds in plant-houses, and, where there is, the 

 specimens cannot be so easily controlled, nor are they at all portable. 



