CHAPTER II 



When you get ready to pot plants, the first thing 

 to do, if your pots are new ones, is to put them to 

 soak in a tub of water. Unless this is done, and the 

 pores of the clay are full of water when the soil is 

 put into them, the moisture will be quickly drawn 

 from it, and the plant will suffer from lack of water 

 before you are aware that there is not enough to 

 supply its needs. 



Provide a quantity of broken crockery, old brick, 

 anything which can be put into the bottom of each 

 pot to the depth of an inch or two and keep the soil 

 above it from running down and filling up the hole 

 in the bottom of the pot, where surplus water is 

 supposed to escape. Do not make this material for 

 drainage too fine. Let the pieces be about an inch 

 square, or like nut coal. 



Some persons seem to think that it is unnecessary 

 to provide drainage. I have often heard it said that 

 it "was all a whim." Not so. The practice is 

 founded on good, sound, philosophic principles. Give 

 the water a chance to drain away from the soil and 

 it follows that only as much will be retained as the 

 plant growing in it requires. If good drainage is 

 provided the water will not remain and sour the soil, 

 as it pretty surely would if no escape was furnished 

 for the water that the soil would not naturally take 

 up. Only a certain quantity can be retained in soils 

 which have natural drainage, and we always aim, 

 in plant culture, to come as near to the natural way 

 of things as possible. 



