12.—1846.] THE 
GARDENERS' 
CHRONICLE. 181 
come expensive. 
. preferred, as a clumsy pot is not only ugly, but it takes 
up so much more room. For drainage, broken crockery 
` and oyster shells do admirably well. Place a concave 
shell over the hole, and fill up to the depth of about an 
inch and a half or two inches with pieces of broken 
crockery, varying the quantity according to the size of 
the pot. Having the soil moderately damp, but by no 
Means wet enough to prevent its crumbling in the 
hands, all is ready for the transfer of the plants to their 
destination. If young plants from a seed-bed, or rooted 
cuttings, have to be potted, the process will be the 
Same, on a small scale, as that described in a former 
Paper for shrubs and trees. Plant high in the pot, let 
the roots ramify equally on all sides, and settle the 
whole by gentle pressure : but repotting is an operation 
of greater nicety, and must be more fully explained. 
As the soil in pots is necessarily very limited, it re- 
quires changing, and at this season all the plants in 
your collection which have been kept in pits and frames 
must be so treated. Suppose you have a quantity of 
Pelargoniums which were struck last season, and stored 
away in small pots during the winter ; the pots will 
now be full of roots, and the plants must be shifted. 
The size called 48s will be best for Pelargoniums and 
Most window-plants, although reference must be had to 
age and robust growth in this particular. 
Before turning out the plant from the small pot, let 
the larger one to which it is to be transferred be so far 
filled with mould that the roots will be buried no deeper 
than they were before. Turn the plant and pot bottom 
upwards on to the palm and fingers of the left hand, 
which must at one and the same time keep the old soil 
from falling out, and allow the plant to remain unin- 
jured in its topsy-turvy position, A slight tap of the 
edge of the pot on the barrow or stand where you are 
Working will generally disengage the mass of root from 
its sides, and you may remove it with ease. An exami- 
nation must now take place, the plant being still held 
in the open hand root upwards. Remove the old drain- 
age, taking care not to rend away the young fibres 
which may have penetrated into it. If only a few roots 
are visible they need not be disturbed, but the mass 
can be turned as it is into the new pot, and the inter- 
stices round it filled up with the compost. The whole 
should then be pressed down so that the cone of mould 
and roots may no longer retain its shape, but may 
amalgamate with the new soil which has been intro- 
duced. But sometimes it will be found that the mass 
turned out is so entangled with roots, that repotting 
has no chance of success unless they are disturbed, and 
Partly removed. The thicker and older portions must 
therefore be pruned away, and what remains disposed 
ìn a form favourable for future growth. To turn out 
Plants from one pot to another without any reference 
to the state of the roots, is indeed repotting, etymolo- 
Bieally idered hilosophy must have to do 
s 3 but p 
With the matter, if the practice is to be more than a | to t 
name, 
s inen the work is finished, the plants should be 
Shaded for a time, till they recover themselves ; the 
Young shoots should be arranged, and their growth 
Stopped if necessary, by pinching off their points. The 
SES of the process of repotting will be speedily visible, 
it is properly done, in the rapid growth and healthy 
Appearance of the plants. Besides this spring potting, 
F Some cases the operation will have to be renewed. 
n üchsias will often make so much new wood, and pro- 
SP roots so rapidly, that a transfer to a larger pot 
d | be necessary. The judgment of the amateur must 
ecide when this is desirable.— Zi 
POLMAISE ING. 
Y nave, in my last icati deavoured to 
uem a fair and candid statement of the case of Pol- 
ad Se, up to the time at which I first ventured to 
Nie your readers, and from whieh I think they 
m none to the conclusion that while all the facts are 
reas of the system, these are only met by suppo- 
the H3 eaving them. to form their own opinions of 
that JR ed by which I have endeavoured to prove 
Selenco z acts are the exact results which Nature and 
lien vould lead us to expect from the means em- 
in ap qe bencced to notice those statements which 
sequently m ed in your columns, together with, or sub- 
will Notice) SL own; and which (I trust your readers 
a trial, or as E onger speak of the system as unworthy 
language of n to lead to disappointment, but in 
racter, and, eh more sensible and guarded cha- 
dei instance, the system is spoken of 
objected to—a thin is only my exposition of it that is 
moment. mg, indeed, of small comparative 
On the 14th of Febru; 
in error in supposing ¢ 
by radiation, and therefore m gases cannot be warmed 
Seon tho man ya tet atin i 
erroneous, I never stated that air was heat ae & 
diation, I especially noticed the properties of an y m 
regard to the distribution of heat, their jos Ser zm E 
Power, their ability to circulate heat by eu Ta iuo ting 
Mer property of allowing radiant heat to pass REG h 
tl em unabsorbed ; but though the air is not eA, 
radiation, the stove is, if the stove at Polmaise is at all 
Pinar in its construction to the generality of heating 
ves. These are usually formed of a fire-box made 
hose of a thin structure should be 
and Polmaise ruined. Mr. Barnes, of Apley-park, 
follows with some remarks; but as they simply repeat 
Mr. Ayres's statements, and are chiefly occupied with a 
detail of his own success in Grape-growing, I may pass 
them by. ier 
This brings me to notice the last communication, that 
of * J. H. H.,” who objects, not to the system, but to 
my explanation of it, and the latter part of which I 
have already answered, in conjunction with “ J.C.” on 
the subject of radiation not being concerned in this sys- 
tem. “J. H. H.” states that I confound relations and 
functions which are distinet in their nature and object, 
and do not admit of a logical comparison ; that I com- 
pare water as an instrument, not with air as an instru- 
ment, but as the subject itself to be warmed, I did 
compare air with water, as an instrument of diffusing 
heat. I investigated those very properties which in- 
titled it, on that pari o be idered a 
superior instrument ; and the fact of the subject being 
itselfthe i ither invalid he reasoning nor 
though it does so in Polmaise; and in my own plans I 
maintain that the draught from house to chamber will 
renders it illogical ; but is an element of that fitness 
for which I contend ? Iam told, I should have compared 
hot water in pipes to hot air in pipes; if this latter had 
been the Polmaise system Mr. Murray would never 
have grown such Grapes, nor should I have volunteered 
its defence. If the admirers of hot water heating have 
in their system chosen an instrument for diffusing heat 
which is endowed with other properties which renders 
it so unmanageable that they are compelled to shut it 
up in iron pipes, while the lovers of hot air employ an 
instrument which is so docile, that they need subject it 
to no such restraint, am I to be told that I may not in- 
stitute any comparison between these instruments, till 
Ihave unfitted the one for that purpose by the very 
means which has fitted the other. . The case is this: I 
have hing to be perf d—two men present 
depend, not mainly upon the within the 
stove (except indirectly), but upon “the difference of 
the temperature between the air in the house and the 
air in the chamber? That the velocity of the draught 
will be regulated, in fact, by the difference of density 
between the air in the two, and that, supposing there 
were a large fire, and this had been long sustained, 
and thus the temperature of the house was approxi- 
mating that of the hot chamber, the draught would be 
trifling while the fire was large; indeed, when 
I reflect upon the many evils that might arise 
from a reverse current setting down the chimney, 
through the fire, and back towards the house, and 
when I know how frequent those down currents are, 
especially when the fire is dying out, or its combustion 
required to be slow, I cannot but think we should act 
more wisely, by avoiding this danger, in supplying the 
atmosphere necessary to the fire from an extraneous 
source ; this will, if possible, simplify the plan, and of 
course secure the air of the house against one mode of 
exhaustion, and I especially recommend these remarks 
he iderati those gentl with whom I 
have communicated privately. On the 24th, is a letter 
from Mr. Liddel, in which he speaks hopefully and 
favourably of the system, remarking truly, that the 
days we live in are so fertile of invention, that no man 
should say the accomplishment of a particular object 
is impossible ; that which is so to-day is not so to- 
morrow; and he gives some plan of his own for con- 
dueting the heated air more perfectly through the 
house, On the 7th March, J. K. says that I am right 
in stating, “that the question of the production of heat is 
not concerned” but, that when Isay “itisasimple question 
of distribution ;” he asks “ whether the heat can be dis- 
tributed before it iscollected?” I reply, it is collected 
in the coals, evolved in the combustion, and our object 
then is distribution. He states “ thatit is not asserted 
any apparatus collects all the heat, more or less passing 
up the chimney.”  Polmaise substitutes the word 
distributes for “ collects;” but;lays no claim to arrest 
every particle of calorie from passing up the chimney ; 
here it shares the common defect of all systems ; but I 
believe that if plans are well arranged, no system need 
lose so little in this way. It is then said that the delay 
I complain of in the distribution of heat by water, com- 
pared to air, is of no moment; though your corres- 
pondent admits it, most people think time saved is 
an excellence; and is it no recommendation—that 
in a climate so changeable as this, the present 
system promises not only to heat well but rapidly ? 
And then comes the truly important question—an im- 
portance scarcely to be overrated—for it affects not the 
expence of the first erection, but the constant one of 
its operation, namely, “whether from the same fuel 
an equal amount of heat is distributed by the two 
systems?” I shall shortly lay before your readers 
certain facts, by which they will at once perceive, that 
in this comparison too, hot water will be found on the 
side of waste ; and this, to an extent little suspected, 
and not to be avoided, unless the lovers of hot water 
trespass on the grounds of Polmaise. All this, your 
correspondent says, we should avoid, “if we knew 
better." I will add, if we would but learn! Then he 
states, that the Polmaise system is adapted at most to 
heat only two houses ; how he arrives at such a con- 
clusion Í am unable to imagine, but I am sure he is 
not brought to it by reading * Nature's book." His 
communication closes with a fallacy ; “ the Polmaise 
system requires considerable briskness in the fire before 
itcan be set in action, and below which it eannot be 
maintained, whilehot water is obedient to every impulse,” 
that is,a liquid is more obedient to the impulse of 
heat than a gas! its particles more moveable ! If 
your correspondent is correct, philosophy is untrue, 
l as i ne a convict the other 
free ; the former, before he can be rendered at all a 
fitting instrument, must be put in chains; is it fair, 
that before estimating the respective qualifications of 
these two men as instruments, I shall put the free man 
in chains also ? nay, that I shall incapacitate him as an 
instrument, by subjecting him to the very conditions 
that capacitate the other : the hot water is the convict, 
and his friends must keep him in chains! There are 
moral errors in which the first false step involves a 
second ; there are physical errors which involve the 
same process, I propose shortly to lay those facts be- 
fore your readers which relate to the waste ineurred in 
the hot-water system, to make some remarks on the 
plan of glazing with laps, and one or two other sub- 
jects relating to atmospheric heat. — D. B. Meeke, 
Holmsdale House, Nutfield. 
GERMAN PAMPHLETS ON THE POTATO 
DISEASE, AND ITS REMEDIES. 
Ar this time all that relates to the Potato disease has 
so much interest, that we have thought it desirable to 
lay before our readers the following abstracts of some 
apers on the subject which have been extensively 
circulated in Germany. 
No. 1. On a New Potato Scoop, with directions for 
using it (a paper circulated through Prussia by the 
Minister of the Interior, with the instrument to which 
it refers).—Since circumstances more than ever demand 
that economy be employed in the use of the seed 
Potatoes, so does it seem the most appropriate time to 
be reminded of a kind of culture which, although not 
new, is not yet universally known, and by which Potato 
planting is effected with slight loss in the mass of 
Potatoes. It is well known that every Potato in a 
depression on the surface, called an “ eye,” contains & 
germ which is capable of developing a perfect Potato 
plant. On a knowledge of this fact is founded the 
practice of'growing the plant from cut Potatoes, or from 
thick portions of the bark or peel of the tuber. in 
both these cases the germ is easily injured, and the 
consequence is that twice or three times more tubers 
are employed than are really required. Already has it 
been proposed to use for this purpose a spoon or scoop, 
butnothing has been thought of adapted for general 
use. An experienced farmer has, however, invented a 
scoop, by the use of which a 
larger amount of produce is se- 
cured, and varieties of Potatoes 
which yield tubers of only small 
circumference, have by its use 
been made to give tubers of a 
large size. 
which are perfectly developed, 
and care should be taken that 
the mass of flesh of the tuber 
taken out with it should beso 
large as entirely to sutround 
the germ, and to contain the 
root of the germ uninjured. 
This instrument consists of a 
round scoop or spoon, made of 
steel, furnished with a sha: 
cutting edge ;'the diameter of 
the circle which the edge forms 
isan inch; the greatest depth of 
the scoop, which has the form 
of half a hollow globe, when 
measured from the centre of the 
diameter of the edge to the 
middle point of the cavity is 
4} to 5 lines, The scoop has a short steel shaft, by 
