POTTING AND REPOTTING OR SHIFTING. 329 



tion to the number of distant fibres cut off by this means, care should be 

 taken of those which are within reach, and which may be removed unin- 

 jured. Whenever trees of numerous roots are removed, some of them can 

 hardly fail to be broken or bruised, and they should be smoothly cut through 

 above the injured part, in order that they may be speedily healed over. Care 

 should be taken in spreading out the roots to allow none to cross one another; 

 and if this cannot be avoided by any other means, recourse must be had to 

 amputation. Cross roots do little harm when young, but, as in the case of 

 branches, they gall one another as they get large. All young and rapidly- 

 growing plants require a larger proportion of fibrous roots, compared with 

 their bulk, than large plants, and these roots are also nearer to the main 

 stem ; and, hence, a young tree can always be taken up with a greater mass 

 of fibres than an old one. When the tops of plants are secured from evapo- 

 ration, the roots may be kept comparatively dry ; but when the top is fully 

 exposed to drying winds, the roots should be kept moist ; and in the case of 

 newly- transplanted trees it is useful to sprinkle water on the tops to prevent 

 the bark from absorbing the returning sap. Where it is not convenient to 

 supply water, the steins and principal branches may be tied round with straw 

 ropes, or covered with moss. 



737. As a summary of general rules for planting, it may be stated that 

 early in autumn, when the soil has not parted with its summer heat, is the 

 best season for trees and shrubs, and open-air plants generally, with the 

 exception of annuals ; that roots should be placed by art as much as possible 

 in the same position in which they would be by nature, that is, with the 

 collar at the surface, and the points of the roots and fibres more or less under 

 it, and in a descending, rather than in an ascending, direction ; that the hole 

 or pit in which plants are placed should always be made larger than the 

 roots which it is to contain; and in the case of large plants convex at bottom 

 and not concave, that the plant being placed on the centre of this convexity, 

 and the roots spread out in every direction, the soil, finely pulverised, ought 

 to be gently thrown over them, either by dropping it perpendicularly, or 

 throwing it in a direction from the centre to the circumference ; that the 

 plant should not be pulled from side to side or up and down, in order to 

 settle the earth about, the roots, as was formerly practised with that view, 

 but the effect of which was to break, bruise, or double the fibres; and, 

 finally, that the soil should be settled about the roots by one thorough 

 watering at the time of planting, and that this watering, in the case of de- 

 ciduous trees, at least, need not in general be repeated. 



II. Potting and Repotting or Shifting. 



738. To pot a plant is to sow or plant it in a pot, box, or tub ; and to re- 

 pot or shift it, is to turn it out of one pot or box, and replace it in the same 

 or in another, with the addition of fresh soil. The mass of soil and roots 

 which is to be shifted is termed a ball. If the object is to add fresh soil, 

 without using a larger pot, then a proportionate quantity must be removed 

 from the ball or mass containing the roots of the plant to be repotted ; but 

 if the object be to add fresh soil without disturbing the roots, the mass or 

 ball of soil and roots is simply placed in a pot a size larger than that from 

 which it was taken, and the vacant space between the ball and the pot filled 



