130 ON A NEW METHOD OF POTTING TLANTS. 



Numerous experiments have been made, and it has been shown that, 

 by the common way of potting, no such ends could be brought about ; 

 since plants which were placed in pots very considerably larger than 

 those which they seemed to require, almost invariably suffered, to a 

 greater or less degree, from the stagnation of water in the soil. And 

 as this accumulation evidently formed the chief obstacle to the adop- 

 tion of large pots for the smallest plants, it was very justly thought 

 that anything which could be employed to drain effectually the entire 

 mass of earth so that no water could stagnate therein, would give the 

 means of allowing young plants in pots all the benefits which they 

 would derive from being planted in beds. 



To promote this object small specimens were shifted from what are 

 called sixty-sized pots, to those which were nine inches or more in 

 diameter, using a turfy fibrous soil, divested of none of its rougher 

 matters, and mixing with it a quantity of broken sandstone, in pieces 

 from a quarter to half an inch square. By the united aid of the 

 turfy and vegetable matters in the soil, and the fragments of stone 

 scattered throughout, it was thus kept porous and open, without even 

 a tendency to become hardened, consolidated, saturated, or sour; and 

 the plants throve in it with the rapidity and health of those which 

 were placed in a border, while, being situated nearer the glass, and 

 more subjected to the agency of air, &c, they began to flower much 

 sooner, and more abundantly. 



Since these first investigations were made, the system has been 

 pursued very extensively by Mr. Goode, the very skilful gardener of 

 Mrs. Lawrence, and produced results of a most astonishing nature. 

 Applied to Heaths and New Holland plants particularly, ithas effected 

 wonders. Some species of the former were so potted last spring, 

 from the cutting-pots in which they had been struck, immediately to 

 large pots, nine, ten, or more inches across, and placed in frames 

 near the glass, with abundance of air during summer, a current being 

 admitted at the bottom of the frame, being raised by a brick at each 

 end. The issue has been that, in the autumn, the specimens were a 

 foot high, and singularly bushy; for a few that develope lateral shoots 

 with the greatest slowness and scarcity, were largely and liberally 

 furnished with them. Other and freer-growing kinds had formed, in 

 the same period, and by the like treatment, specimens nearly eighteen 

 inches high, of the most compact and perfect figure, and had twice 



