POT-GROWN PLANTS. 31 



occupy as small a space as possible, pot-bound speci- 

 mens are the rule, rather than the exception. And 

 for plants intended to be removed to the open ground 

 as permanent specimens, scarcely a worse condition 

 could exist ; it is superlatively bad. 



For the purpose of illustration, we will suppose a 

 person to have purchased a plant in the condition 

 above described, and intends immediately to plant it 

 out. On removing the pot he is delighted to find coil 

 upon coil of fine healthy roots. He knows very well 

 that to commit them to their new situation in an 

 uncoiled state will be highly improper, and so, with 

 great care, he proceeds to disentangle them. How- 

 ever careful he may be, the loss of many valuable 

 roots will result, and damage to the remaining will be 

 equally certain. Those in the interior of the ball, 

 from their size and woody texture, will not yield at 

 all, and he closes his half-finished labour, with the 

 conviction that he has seriously damaged his plant. 

 But this mutilation, great as it is, is far preferable to 

 having planted it with its matted roots undisturbed. 



A plant which has once been thoroughly pot-bound 

 never gets so firm a hold in the soil as one whose 

 roots have never been confined. Instances are nume- 

 rous, where valuable specimens, after years of growth, 

 have been blown down in consequence of the very slight 

 manner in which they retained their position. The main 

 roots, when young, had, from pot-culture, acquired a 

 coil-like arrangement, which, during all their subsequent 

 growth, they adhered to enlarging, but not spreading 

 increasing in bulk, but contributing little to the 



