CHAP. III. PLANTING. 69 



will ever pass out of them from below. Upon this point one 

 may easily satisfy oneself by merely placing out an empty 

 flower-pot in the Kains. It will soon become filled with water, 

 which will remain in it very many days, till dried up by 

 evaporation. Such being the case with an empty pot, much 

 more is it likely to be so with one that contains anything 

 within it. 



One remedy for this is, of course, very obvious, being merely 

 to lay two bricks side by side, about three or four inches apart, 

 and upon them place the pot with the hole just half-way 

 between. This also serves to exclude worms, with which, when 

 pots rest upon the ground in wet weather, they soon become 

 filled. Another remedy is to have pots made with drainage- 

 holes round the side, about an inch from the bottom. 



For Begonias, Achimenes, and 

 choice and tender plants of that 

 description, which require the 

 shelter of a verandah, an excellent 

 method, as shown in Fig. 8, is to 

 procure a shallow pan for the 

 plant to grow in, and to drop it 

 into a flower-pot about double its 

 depth, so that the rim of the pan 

 rests exactly upon the rim of the 



flower-pot. By this means drainage is rendered effectual, and 

 insects are excluded. 



Dwarf choice plants, such as Tetranema, it is always desirable 

 to grow in pots correspondingly small. To prevent the fluctua- 

 tions of temperature consequent upon speedy evaporation in 

 pots so small, it is usual to plunge them in larger ones filled 

 with sand. 



PLANTING. 



SEASON. 



Planting consists, for the most part, in transferring young 

 shrubs or trees from the pots, in which they have been growing, 

 into the places in the open ground where they are permanently 

 to remain. This, with many plants of a robust nature, may be 

 done almost indifferently at any season. But the two seasons 

 more especially suited for the operation are the setting in of 



