850 



PRACTICE OF GARDENING. 



Part III. 



small roots will have rilled the pots, and probably their large, or What is called by some the carrot root, 

 may be grown so long as to require shortening ; in this case the plant must be taken out of the pot, and 

 the earth entirely shaken from it ; you will see what is necessary to be done ; shorten the carrot-root, if 

 necessary, for if you suffer it to remain too long, it will either get rotten at the end, and always keep the 

 plant weak, or will be too long for an ordinary pot; besides, it would want shifting every year, and never 

 produce fine strong flowers. Reduce their small roots to about ten or a dozen, leaving those that are 

 nearest the leaves ; they will be sufficient again to support and vegetate your plant. If you perceive any 

 canker or rottenness in the root, cut it boldly to the quick, till it appear fresh and lively, and no spots or 

 symptoms of decay remain ; put on the wounds a little mastich, bees' wax, turpentine, and white rosin, in 

 equal parts, to heal and dry them ; leaving as many fibres to it as possible. If a large -blooming plant, or any 

 other one you remove, has been in the pot but one year since it was last transplanted, you may slip it out 

 of the pot with all its earth about it, and although its fibres may have reached the outside, they will not 

 be so large and numerous, or so matted together, as the older plants that have remained in one pot two 

 clear years. You need not therefore shake the earth from it, but with a sharp knife cut the fibres and 

 earth away till you reduce it to the size of a cricket-ball, or rather larger, as much depends on the size 

 and age of your plant. (Treatise, 132.) 



6366. Hogg recommends the first week in August, because " if you put your plants at this early period 

 of the summer into pots, in which they are to remain till they flower again next spring, the space of 

 nearly twelve months, the strength of the compost must be greatly reduced before that time, particularly 

 as they require so much water during the hot months of June and July ; this must tend, beyond all doubt, 

 to exhaust the nutriment contained in so small a body of earth, as is in the pots ; by which means they 

 will be less able to throw out strong fibres, or to produce you strong blooms in the spring. Early potting 

 is attended with another evil consequence ; for, the plants being removed into fresh and more vegetative 

 earth, accompanied with daily waterings, forces them prematurely into a state of active vegetation, and 

 causes them to flower late in the autumn, a circumstance which the florist always views with regret, as 

 it in a great measure destroys his hopes of a fine bloom at their natural and expected season, towards the 

 latter end of April : this last argument of itself appears to me quite conclusive in favor of late pot- 

 ting. The slips or offsets will also have acquired more strength and better roots, by being suffered to ad- 

 here to the parent plant till the beginning of August, and will occasion you less trouble in protecting and 

 shading them. From the beginning of August to the beginning of November is a period quite long enough 

 for the plants to strike fresh fibres, and to get well established in the pots, before winter ; and, with the 

 return of spring, you may expect a vigorous growth of the plant in all its parts. The customary mode is, to 

 shake the mould completely from the roots every second year ; but, in doing this, you must be guided by 

 the state and condition of your plants. The late Kenny let his remain very frequently until the third 

 year, reducing the ball of earth only, trimming the fibres, and examining the carrot or main root. 

 Transplanting should be done in a cloudy sky and a moist atmosphere." 



6367. Justice pots suckers, and transplants old plants, in August. Henderson, of Delvine, says, 

 " the shifting season is always, with me, about the third week of May, when the plants have done flow- 

 ering. At that season, I shake the mould from the old plants, and cut the end of the stump up to the 

 fresh young roots, if it has grown too long. (I am now speaking of those plants which have been in the 

 largest-sized pots for two years.) After dressing the wounds with gum-mastich, to prevent gangrene, the 

 plants are repotted in the second size of pots. Next May they are shifted, with the ball entire, into the 

 largest size, or flowering-pots ; so that from the first potting of the young plants in small pots, to a com- 

 plete shifting, four years elapse ; the plants having been one year in small pots, one in the second size, 

 and two in the largest, or third size. A little river-sand is put round the stems at all the shillings ; and if 

 any wounds are made by taking off the suckers, they are dressed with mastich. At all times the stems 

 are cleared of sprouts above ground as they appear, but suckers from under are allowed to grow, in order 

 to form young plants." (Caled. Hort. Soc. iii. 230.) 



6368. Removal and potting of offsets. When offsets have formed one or more fibres, an inch or two 

 in length, Maddock directs to remove them by means of a piece of hard wood, or by the use of the 

 fingers, to be separated from the old plant with safety, and replanted round the sides of a small pot, filled 

 with the same compost, till they become sufficiently grown to occupy pots separately: if a small hand- 

 glass be placed over each pot containing these newly-planted offsets, it will cause their fibres to grow 

 more rapidly ; but it should not be long continued, as it would have a tendency to draw and weaken the 

 plant. (Florist's Direc. 130.) 



6369. Emmerton says, " You may separate offsets from the mother plant any time between February 

 and August, according as they are in size, or are wanted for increase, and plant them immediately 

 against the side of pots four or five inches in diameter. If a strong and superior bloom of flowers is de- 

 sired, no offsets must be allowed to grow on the old plant, and especially none on the stem without 



fibres. Rub them all off when they are about the size of hemp-seed." (Treatise on the Auricula, &c. 126.) 



6370. General culture. Maddock keeps his auriculas 

 during one part of the year in what he calls a summer re- 

 pository (fig. 604.), and the other in a winter repository. 



6371. Summer repository. " The following is recom- 

 mended as a proper plan for the summer repository, viz. 

 in the first place, there should be a bed of coal-ashes 

 formed in the place where it is intended to be erected, 

 about five or six inches thick ; or a platform of plain 

 square tiles, closely fitted to each other, on the surface of 

 the ground, to preserve the pots from the common earth- 

 worm, which, by gaining admittance into them, would f i 

 perforate, and alter the consistence of the soil, in such a : ' 

 manner as to prove very injurious ; upon this foundation, 

 rows of bricks (fig. 604") are to be placed in straight lines, 

 about two or three inches asunder, which will allow a free 

 circulation of air under and between the pots when placed 

 upon them, an object of great importance, especially in 

 warm weather, when the air is most inclined to stagnate, 

 and become impregnated with noxious effluvia. The 

 plants, by the above plan, will be raised from nine to 

 twelve inches above the level of the ashes or platform. 

 There should be two rows of substantial stakes, three feet 

 long, and five inches by three wide, one row of which 

 should be placed on each side, at about three or four inches' 

 distance from the two outside rows of pots (b) : these stakes (c) should be driven twenty inches into the 

 ground, with their narrow sides towards the pots, and have notches cut in their tops, to receive the 

 edges of the shutters they are intended to support. By way of illustration, suppose the whole length of 

 the platform to be twelve yards, and the width three feet, it will contain seven rows, and each row about 

 seventy pots ; a sufficient number to constitute a moderate collection for a private gentleman. Three 

 shutters (/), made with feather-edged inch-deal boards, each four yards long, and two feet six inches 

 wide, will reach the whole length on one side : three of the notched stakes will be sufficient to support 

 one of these shutters ; of course, fifteen stakes at proper distances will completely answer the purposes 

 en one side : the notches are tc be cut in the form of a V, two inched deep and three inches wide at the 



