192 



THE FLORISTS MANUAL. 



swallowed instead of coloring the at 

 mosphere. 



You will see a man take hold of a 

 cutting between his finger ana thumb 

 by the top of the shoot, and suspend 

 it in the little pot, then fill up the pot 

 heaping full and then begin to thumb 

 all around on the surface. Then the 

 same man or his class will take a plant 

 that has come out of a 3-inch and after 

 putting half an inch of soil in the bot- 

 ton of a 4-inch, set the plant in with 

 the old ball one inch down the new pot, 

 then a big handful of soil is thrown on 

 the top and the thumbing commences 

 again with several revolutions of the 

 pot and a few extra pressures of the 

 thumb. 



If you will knock out the 2-inch first 

 described you will find that near the 

 bottom, where the soil should be com 

 pact around the roots, it is loose, but 

 firm on the surface, where you don t 

 want it so. And if you will knock out 

 , the 4-inch you will find the first inch 

 quite solid, but lower down where the 

 roots are you will find spaces between 

 the old ball and the pot, which I have 

 learned to call, when exhibiting them 

 to a workman, &quot;mouse s nests,&quot; for I 

 have found the cavities large enough to 

 domicile the little rodent. 



When potting see that your soil is 



so dear to the eye and heart of a farm 

 er when plowing his clay loam in the 

 spring, when it falls back from the plow 

 share in flaky particles. 



In the old country, so-called (this 

 is the oldest, geologically, by some odd 

 billions of years) we were taught to 

 sprinkle the new pots before using 

 them, and although it is disregarded in 

 our hurry, it is, I am sure, an excellent 

 plan to dip all new pots a moment or 

 two. We are also taught in Europe to 

 wash all pots before being used again. 

 This is a good thing to do when you 

 have the time, but we never seem to have 

 the time, so we put them out of doors 

 in summer when out of use. If you have 

 a field and can spread them out the rains 

 will do much to wash the outsides, but 

 if the cows walk over them or children 

 play ball with them it is sometimes ex 

 pensive. Piled up in neat rows with 

 some boards for a foundation does us 

 very well, for then they get thoroughly 

 dry, and when wanted for use a coarse 

 wad of cloth will give them what 

 Nicholas Nickleby had to put up with 

 the morning after his arrival at Dothe- 

 boy s Hall, a dry rub. This dry rub 

 will clean them inside near enough for 

 most all of our common plants. 



The very worst place for storing pots 

 is under a wet bench, where they get 



Primula Obconica Grandiflora. 



in just the right consistency. It should 

 never be too dry, and to be wet and 

 sticky would be ruination. Some one, 

 perhaps Mr. Henderson, described it 

 admirably when he said it should be 

 in such condition that you could 

 squeeze up a handful and it would ad 

 here in a lump, but Avhen thrown on 

 the bench it would crumble to pieces. 

 That is just about the same condition 



so saturated that they must be in poor 

 condition, for although the water we 

 give our plants does not all go out 

 through the porous pots, as somebody 

 said it did, yet it is well to have as 

 much of the porous quality as we can 

 get. There is considerable humbug 

 about porous pots, however, and we do 

 not attach much importance to it be 

 cause we see plants thriving in a green 



painted pine tub, which is no more 

 porous than our neighbors pie crust. 



It is a great benefit to have our flower 

 pots and pans all of one standard make, 

 and, better still, to have one maker s 

 make. The breakage of pots in the old 

 days of hand-made pots was terrific, and 

 we should squeal awfully had we the 

 same amount to lay out for potting soil. 



It is difficult to attempt to give any 

 instructions on how to pot or shift a 

 plant, but a few hints will suffice. 



To begin with a rooted cutting. If 

 the roots are small the pot can be filled 

 to overflowing with soil and one dab 

 of the forefinger makes a hole big 

 enough to put in the plant; or if the 

 roots are too long for that, hold the 

 plant with the two first fingers and 

 thumb and fill up with one handful of 

 soil, then with the thumb and first finger 

 of the left hand and first finger of the 

 right hand run into the soil perpendicu 

 larly on three sides of the plant, you 

 have well firmed the soil around the 

 roots, where it ought to be firm, and as 

 you pass the plant into a flat a rap will 

 settle the soil and the first watering will 

 do the rest. 



You ought to learn to seize the plant 

 with one hand and the pot with the 

 other. A good hand at this light job 

 with cuttings that are easy to handle, 

 who has his pots and plants brought to 

 him and carried away, ought to pot 

 easily 500 an hour. 



When it comes to shifting a 2-inch 

 to a 3-inch, or a 3-inch to a 4-inch, 

 you should hold the plant by the stem, 

 letting your little finger rest a moment 

 on the edge of the pot, fill the pot nearly 

 a third full, and then lean the plant 

 toward you and put in some soil, give 

 the pot just one half turn and lean the 

 plant again toward you and fill up the 

 other side, and then squeeze the ball 

 hard down ; another rap, and the shift 

 is done. Now, by this method you have 

 put the soil solid all around the ball, 

 firmer near the bottom, because you 

 wedged the plant into the soil. 



Up to 6-inch pots this method will 

 do, with perhaps the addition of get 

 ting your fingers down the sides as a 

 rammer. With all shifts of plants over 

 0-inch, especially with those that get 

 a small shift, say 6-inch to 8-inch or 

 10-inch to 12-inch, you cannot get the 

 soil, which in these sizes should never be 

 sifted, down compact without the aid 

 of a stick an inch or two wide and one- 

 half or three-quarters of an inch thick. 

 All hard-wooded plants, like azaleas, 

 want to be firmly potted; and some of 

 our soft-wooded plants, geraniums for 

 instance, want hard potting. As a rule, 

 plants are potted too loosely. 



it would be a dirty job to be shift 

 ing plants within a few minutes of 

 their being watered, but it would be 

 far worse for the plant to shift it when 

 it was quite dry, or in that condition 

 that it needed watering, and the larger 

 the plant the worse it would be be 

 cause the water would largely pass down 

 through the new soil and the old ball 

 would remain dry till the plant was thor 

 oughly soakp d, which all plants won t 

 stand. 



