158 PRACTICAL GARDEXINQ. 



piece of " crock," as these broken pieces of pot are called, 

 placed over the hole, and the rest of the pot may be filled 

 with the soil. They are perhaps struck by thousands in the 

 autumn, and potted when struck, merely to store them through 

 the bad weather. In the spring they are turned out into beds, 

 or sold to those who prefer buying to the trouble and incon- 

 venience of propagating. But if plants are to be grown to 

 perfection in pots, drainage is the most important part of the 

 operation, and if it be not well attended to, a majority of the 

 plants will soon become unhealthy, whether they be hardy, 

 half-hardy, greenhouse, or stove kinds. 



Soil and Composts. — This is necessarily varied according 

 to the plants ; but there are some points even in the manage- 

 ment of this that require attention to all. It must not be 

 adhesive, but whether rich or poor, it must be sufficiently 

 open — that is to say, porous — to let water pass freely through 

 it ; otherwise it will be impossible to moisten it all alike, and 

 therefore the nourishment would not be equally afforded to 

 all the fine roots that require to be fed. A soil which is 

 naturally sufficiently porous to allow the moisture to go freely 

 through it, may, by sifting it through a fine sieve, to deprive 

 it of the stones and fibrous matter it contained, become much 

 too binding for plants ; sifting, therefore, is never advantageous, 

 unless there be too many large stones, and when there are 

 too many, the sieve should be large enough to let everything 

 through that is as large as a marble, for small pots, and as 

 large as a walnut for those of a greater size. Sifted earth will 

 run close together like mud, and will become so compact that 

 roots can hardly penetrate it after a time ; and when this is 

 the case, the plant dwindles and often dies. We may, indeed, 

 mix up a compost that would let wet through, however fine 

 it was sifted, but this would not have sufficient heart in it. 

 Sand, for instance, would allow water to pass freely, when 

 once damped all through, but it has no heart at all; conse- 

 quently, the more sand we mix with soil the poorer it will 

 become ; but natural soil, with its proper portion of stones, 

 half decomposed fibres, and bits of half rotted Avood, may 

 require no sand or weakening mixture, and yet allow the 

 moisture a free passage, while if the same were sifted through 

 a moderately fine sieve, it would run into a cake, excluding 

 the air, which is so essential to the roots of plants as well as 

 the plant itself, and thus deprive it of the very element of all 



