166 PRACTICAL GARDENING. 



above ttie soil. Cyclamen, gloxinia, achimenes, amaryllis, and 

 some others, are habitually grown on the surface, or at least 

 partly exposed ; but it is by no means determined that they 

 are the better for exposure ; though, to look at some of their 

 growths, it would be hazardous to say they are worse for it. 

 The principal thing to attend to is the size of the pot and the 

 quality of the soil, which, in a general way, is always used 

 rich and light. The bulbs must be buried, all but just the 

 upper surface, which may be even with the soil. 



Shifting from one Pot to another. — This should always 

 be done with great care and circumspection. The roots should 

 not be allowed to get matted before they are shifted, unless it 

 is absolutely required that the plants should be checked. 

 Supposing plants to have been in small pots until they are 

 nearly filled with roots, and you choose the plants to be 

 grown well, get pots just so much larger as will enable you to 

 fill the vacancy between the ball and the side of the pot with 

 the same compost it is grown in, and without any more siftuig 

 than it has had already ; consequently you must have room 

 enough to drop in a nut all round, otherwise the small lumps 

 on the soil would not go down, and the sides would be hollow. 

 This would leave the fibres that are outside the ball without 

 any nourishment, and throw the plant into bad health, if it 

 did not altogether spoO. it. The ball should then be gently 

 tapped out of the old pot, and the drainage of the new one 

 having been pro^dded, put in so much soil, highest in the 

 middle, as will sustain the ball so that it may be pressed down 

 to the proper height, which is easily done when the soil in the 

 pot is conical, because it gives way to the pressure : and when 

 the plant is at its proper height in the pot, which must not be 

 any deeper than it was in the lesser one, put on the soil all 

 round so as to fill up to the surface, poking it down carefully 

 with the finger-ends, or a piece of wood selected or cut on 

 purpose ; not ramming it down hard, but pressing it as much 

 as the origuial is pressed, that it may all resist or absorb 

 water alike ; for be it remembered that it is impossible to 

 grow a plant well if the ball be hard and the soil put round 

 be soft, or the ball be soft and the soil round it hard. In the 

 one case the ball obtains no wet, because it runs through the 

 surrounding soil too quickly ; in the other, the ball is within 

 walls, as it were, that resist the wet, and the water that is 

 given to it cannot get away. / 



