390 PLAIN AND PLEASANT TALK 



POTTING GARDEN PLANTS FOR WINTER USE. 



HOSES, geraniums, chrysanthemums, Cape jasmins, etc., 

 which have been put into the garden borders, should 

 be prepared for removal to the parlor for winter, before 

 frost, else the plants will not be established in the pots 

 when removed to the parlor, and will thrive but poorly. 



Select the pot which is to receive each plant, draw a cir- 

 cle about the plant of the size of the pot, then thrust a 

 sharp spade down so as to cut all the roots at the line of the 

 circle described. Let the plant remain, watering it tho- 

 rouglily y and if it droops, let it be sheltered from the sun. 

 In a few days new roots will begin to form within the ball 

 of earth described by the circle, and in three or four weeks 

 that ball may be carefully lifted, placed in the pot for wlm-h 

 it was measured, and it will go on growing as if nothing 

 had happened to it. If one waits till frost, then digs up the 

 plant without a previous preparation of its roots, it will of- 

 tentimes not recover from the violence during the winter. 

 But by the method suggested above, roses, etc., will go on 

 growing and blooming through the winter. 



THERE are many who suppose it necessary to leave the 

 second growth of grass undisturbed, to rot on the ground, 

 in order to preserve the fertility of old meadows in grass 

 where top dressing with manure is not resorted to. But 

 such management is oftentimes extremely hurtful, and the 

 injury is proportioned to the amount left untrodden an. I 

 unfed. If the amount left standing, or laying loose upon 

 the surface, be considerable, it makes a harbor for mice, 

 which will, under cover of the old grass, intersect the sur- 

 face of the land with paths innumerable, from which they 

 cut all the grass that comes in their way. 



