GHOWING PLANTS IN POTS. 161 



fibres, are protected in the earth by the surrounding soil, and 

 the sun and Tmid cannot affect them unless they can bake the 

 soil do\vn as low as they reach ; whereas in a pot, both sun 

 and wind affect the sides of the pot, where all the ends of the 

 fibres He. Xext, the roots in the open ground can and do 

 travel do^^Ti after moisture, which, by capillary attraction, is 

 brought up to meet them, and in fact comes past them to the 

 very surface, and is constantly going off by evaporation ; con- 

 sequently, every sprinkle of rain that wets the surface sup- 

 plies the evaporation, if it does nothing else, and the moisture 

 below is spared to a certain degree, and the plant is benefited 

 even by the slightest shower. Now the plant in a pot has no 

 moisture to meet, no capillary attraction can supply it from 

 below ; so that if the soil be sprinkled in imitation of a slight 

 shower, which goes half an inch down the soil, it is not bene- 

 fited at all. The pots repeatedly sprinkled will be gradually 

 sinkuig for want of moisture below, while the top half-inch or 

 inch may be kept constantly damp. 



We have seen — and it was a practical lesson to us which 

 we shall never forget — a whole collection of heaths that had 

 been starved into bad health by constant and attentive slight 

 waterings ; and on turning out plant after plant, showed the 

 astonished amateur that he had only watered the top half-inch 

 or inch of soil, while all below it was perfectly dry, and a 

 great part of the fibres perished. Let it never be forgotten, 

 therefore, that when a plant in a pot is to be watered, the 

 entire soil in the pot must be moistened, and that it is not to 

 be watered again while the soil is damp enough to feed the 

 roots. In winter time, therefore, plants in a cold frame may 

 go a month sometimes without watering, and not be in so 

 much distress as they would be in summer time in four-and- 

 twenty hours after they had been attended to. It ought, there- 

 fore, to be borne in mind, that when the directions for culti- 

 vating anything in a pot enjoin the grower to " give but little 

 water," to " be sparint^ of water," — or we are warned that a 

 plant must have " slight waterings," all these directions must 

 be taken in a very different sense to that in which most 

 amateurs receive them. Slight waterings are destructive ; be 

 cautious that plants are not watered too often ; but when 

 they are watered , every grain of soil in the pot is to be wetted, 

 for they have no aid from the soil of the garden ; their roots 

 cannot feed themselves unless they protrude through the 



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