64 PRACTICAL FLORICULTURE. 



for the two-inch pots ; but there are few exceptions of 

 this kind. The great mass of plants, when in the con- 

 dition of rooted cuttings, do much better in the smaller 

 size, for the reason that the smaller mass of soil in the 

 two-inch pot allows the moisture to pass off quicker, and 

 thereby prevents the soil from becoming sour, or sodden, 

 which would be the case, more or less, if the cuttings 

 had been overpotted in a three or four-inch pot. The 

 operation of potting cuttings is very simple, and, in 

 florists' establishments, is performed with great rapidity, 

 average workmen doing three hundred plants per hour, 

 though expert working florists should do five hundred per 

 hour. We have quite a number of men who can do this 

 with ease. The pot is filled to the level with soil, a space 

 made with the finger, in the center of the soil, of suffi- 

 cient size to admit the root, which is placed in the open- 

 ing thus made ; the soil is closed in again by pressing 

 with the thumbs close to the neck of the cutting, which 

 firms the soil around the root ; a smart rap is struck the 

 side of pot with the hand, which levels the surface of the soil, 

 and the operation is done. After the plants are placed in 

 pots, they are shaded from two to six days by covering 

 them with paper while the sun is shining on them, care 

 being taken to keep the paper moist by sprinkling. For 

 nearly all the commoner kinds of bedding plants, such as 

 Boses, Verbenas, Heliotropes, etc., cuttings in these two- 

 inch pots, if stood on tables, which are covered with an inch 

 of sand, and occasionally moved, to keep the roots from 

 pushing too far through into the sand, will keep in a 

 healthy condition from one to two months, at the cool 

 season of the yeafr, from January to May ; but when the 

 pots get filled with roots, the plants should be shifted 

 into larger sized pots, to keep them in good health. When 

 plants are required to be grown as specimens, or of larger 

 size, for sale in spring, they must be repotted at intervals 

 as the condition of their growth demands; for example, 



