POTTING AND 



and therefore they might as well be given now, 

 thus saving the labor and trouble of repotting. 

 Small plants cannot make use of the nutri- 

 ment contained in large quantities of soil, and 

 when we put them in large pots we overfeed 

 them. Their powers of digestibility are not 

 equal to the demand made upon them; con- 

 sequently a sort of vegetable dyspepsia results 

 which is often fatal, always harmful. It is 

 much better to repot at intervals, as the old 

 pots become filled with roots, than to antici- 

 pate the future need of a plant by giving 

 large pots when they are not needed. 



I would not advise keeping old plants over 

 from year to year. Rather would I advise 

 growing new ones to take the places of those 

 which have outlived their usefulness, or have 

 outgrown the limits that can conveniently be 

 assigned them. We do not always get the 

 most or finest flowers from old plants, or 

 large ones, as some persons have an idea. 

 Young, strong plants are almost invariably 

 more satisfactory in the window-garden than 

 older ones. By the term young, used in this 

 connection, I have reference to plants in the 

 prime of their development. The only class 

 of plants I would advise retaining after hav- 



38 



