THE GARDENER’ 
CHRONICLE. 
171 
obtained by the personal or written orders of Fellows of the So- 
ciety. se 
Four; bul 
applications for such tickets will be received after that day. It 
‘would be a great convenience to the Society, if the Fellows 
would take their tickets personally, and not by written orders ; 
r, in the event of their not so taking them, if they would at 
once order the whole number which they may require for the 
season. After the 18th of April any further number of tickets 
will be delivered to Fellows on their personal application or 
written order, at the price of Five Shillings each ticket. Each 
ticket will be available for the admission of one Visitor, after one 
o’clock, to either of the three Exhibitions, at the option of the 
Visitor. All applications for tickets must be made at the So- 
ciety’s Office, 21, Regent-street. 
Che Garveners’ Chronicle. 
SATURDAY, MARCH 18, 1843, 
MEETINGS FOR THE TWO FOLLOWING WEEKS. 
Horticultural oo oe BPM 
Tuesday, Mar.o1 . . 8 pat 
ultnral 
sf Geological. . 
Wednesday, Mar. 22 . 
UMedico-Botanical .°. . 8 pa 
Saturday, Mar. 25 . + « Royal Botanic + agreae 
Tuesday, Mar. 28 + Zoological, . . . . + Bh rae 
Wuen we some long while ago ventured to oppose 
the vulgar prejudice in favour of soft-burnt flower-pots 
and against hard ones, we heard on all sides only one 
outcry, and that against the absurdity of supposing 
that plants could be grown in any material exceptsuch 
as is porous. We, however, maintained our ground, 
urged the objectors to examine the question experi- 
mentally, and not prejudicially, if we may apply that 
word in so new a sense ; and the issue of the investi- 
gation has shewn that we were right—that plants can 
be grown in slate as well as in the softest and rudest 
earthenware. Thus encouraged, and seeing that what 
gardeners are the most certain about is not always the 
most certain, we will venture to enter the lists against 
another of their prejudices. 
A fortnight since, our correspondent, Mr. Ayres, 
very properly called attention to the modern plan, 
adopted here and there, of potting young plants at 
once in large pots, 'so as to avoid the necessity of 
frequently shifting them, and he mentioned instances 
of the obviously good effect of the system. This, like 
the hard-baked pots, has raised a host of objectors, who 
point to their own experience as an unanswerable 
argument against what some are desirous of calling the 
‘one-shift system.” “ We have grown plants,” they 
say, “all our lives ; we always adopted the good plan 
of frequent potting ; and we are reckoned pretty good 
gardeners, we believe. We never heard of such a 
thing as putting small plants into pots as large as the 
are likely to require when old, and we wonder that 
the Editor of the Gardeners’ Chronicle should allow his 
Paper to contain such stuff.” These correspondents 
do not say that they ever tried the one-shift system 
themselves ; all that they insist upon is, that their 
own method being right, the other must necessarily be 
wrong, We ought not to expect gardeners’ logic to 
be worthy of that of the Professor of Casuistry at 
Cambridge, but we confess that such as we haye 
literally quoted from a paper or two before us, reminds 
us of an Irish story worth telling on this occasion. 
A manwas indicted at the Clonmelassizes for stealing 
@ pig; on his trial he produced a dozen witnesses, who 
Swore that they knew the prisoner well, that they did 
not see him steal the pig, and did not believe him 
Capable of doing such a thing: unluckily one witness 
appeared who did see him drive it away, and to the man’s 
8reat surprise that one positive evidence was preferred 
y the jury to the prisoner’s twelve negatives. So it is 
With this question about the “ one-shift” system: 
twelve men may say that they never saw it done, and 
do not believe it possible ; but one man who has seen 
it, and found it answer, will be regarded by the public 
as the better evidence. 
ith these remarks we beg to introduce to the notice 
OF our readers a letter written upon shifting plants 
Y 4 correspondent calling himself Observator. That 
letter seems to include all the objections that gardeners 
are likely to make to the method ; and as we anticipate 
No more yalid reasons against it, we shall take it to 
ee and, as we proceed, explain what we conceive 
Be the fallacies it involves. 
ee > pongst others,” says Observator, “have 
eae startled by Mr. Ayres’ description of the 
cvs te system,’ as he designates what he appears 
[eee an. eae method of potting plants,— 
that if 2 a have always been taught to consider 
larger ae 1 vere put into a pot three or four sizes 
aes an the one it had been growing in, it could 
y any means be made to thrive healthily, or if it 
did thrive, it would run into such a wild exuberance 
of growth as to be quite unmanageable ; and as to its 
flowering, that would be entirely out of the question 
until it had filled its pots with roots, and consequently 
its supply of nourishment had been in some degree 
exhausted. I have always been taught to carefully 
guard against the ‘ over-potting ’ of plants: how great 
was my surprise, then, to find that I and all my sage 
tutors have been pursuing the wrong path to excel- 
lence of cultivation ; and, though we may have turned 
out some tolerably good specimens of plants, yet it 
could only be by mere chance—we owed nothing to 
skill ! What an immense saving of labour might have 
been made, had we been earlier made acquainted with 
the‘ one-shift system’! However, it is never too late to 
mend our ways; and the sooner we do it, especially as 
our ways are not ‘ Nature’s ways, the better. Now 
that we have got a system by which we may hope to 
make our plants form a three years’ growth, and 
probably a three years’ crop of flowers, in one year, 
we have indeed a very strong stimulus to exertion— 
bs say nothing of the great saving of labour we shall 
effect.” 
Thus far, we find the usual.appeal to what men are 
accustomed to, and nothing more; it is a good 
specimen of the bad way in which some people dispute 
when they fancy they are arguing. * 
“ But,” continues the writer, “however good in 
theory the ‘one-shift system ’ may seem at first sight, 
T have some latent misgivings as to its efficacy, at least 
in all cases. Nature is not always the safest guide.” 
Nature not the safest guide! why, what other guide 
are we to take? Is there anybody vain enough. to 
imagine that his knowledge of what is fitting for the 
well-being of a plant is better known to himself than 
to the Creator of all things? On the contrary, we 
venture to affirm that there is not a single good mode 
of cultivation that is not conformable to Nature’s ways, 
that all cultivation is good in proportion as these ways 
are followed, and that all bad cultivation is in direct 
violation of important natural laws. Our friend 
“ Observator” should have said, We often do not suffi- 
ciently understand Nature, and therefore we are apt to 
Sancy we are following her when we are going the other 
way ; but let that pass for the present. 
“If,” says our correspondent, in continuation, “ we 
place a plant in an artificial situation, it is by artificial 
means, to a great extent, that we must keep it in a 
healthy existence. I do not mean to assert that in 
pot-culture the laws of nature should be entirely dis- 
regarded, for in our potting and watering, and other 
attentions to plants, we are imitating nature; but we 
may exceed the proper limits, and in attempting to 
imitate nature too exactly, we may find that her laws 
are not, in all cases, applicable to plants placed in an 
artificial situation.” 
ere we have a string of phrases the precise bear- 
ing of which seems to our apprehension rather 
obscure. Plants artificially grown are to be artificially 
treated—no doubt; but artificial treatment need not 
be in opposition to natural laws—on the contrary, it 
should follow them as nearly as circumstances will 
permit, But, says “ Observator,” the laws of nature 
are not to be entirely disregarded, only we may exceed 
the proper limits—that is to say, instead of following 
Nature we may run before her; and then, when we 
have so exceeded them, we may find that her laws are 
not applicable to plants in an. artificial situation— 
which, being put into plain English, is the same thing 
as saying that a violation of the laws of nature produces 
bad effects, ergo the laws themselves are not fit to be 
observed. 
We confess our inability to comprehend this process 
of reasoning; let us hope for more success next week, 
when we resume the consideration of the remainder 
of our worthy correspondent’s letter. 
Tur subject of experimenting on a large scale, to 
the importance of which Professor Henslow has lately 
so skilfully directed attention, and upon which we last 
week made a few remarks, is one, the importance and 
possibility of which become more evident the more 
we consider it in all its bearings. When a philoso- 
her works carefully in his cabinet, acquainted accu- 
rately with the nature of all the agents spread before 
him, and alive to all the disturbing influences that 
may affect his results, he knows that one experiment 
is as good as a hundred, anda necessity for repeating 
it may not be felt; for when natural causes are 
exactly alike, the same effects must as surely follow 
them as when figures are dexterously combined by 
the arithmetician. But the cultivator of the soil is 
in a wholly different position: he has to deal with 
materials which, although they are called by the same 
name, may be really very. different in their nature ; he 
knows very little about..them; a thousand cireum- 
stances unobserved by his unirained eye may exist to 
disturb his results, and :the:eonsequence is that all his 
experiments must be varied and repeated till @ series 
of averages shall form a rough but sufficient check to 
his conclusions. We may fairly doubt whether the 
coarse operations of Gardening and Agriculture will 
ever bear to be examined in any other way ; and if 
they would bear it, the new results of new practices 
will certainly fail of carrying conviction to the minds 
of the mass of the people, unless supported by evidence 
accumulated upon evidence. 
For example: A. dresses an acre of his land with 
nitrate of soda, tries a cheap experiment—gains an 
ample return, and concludes that this substance is the 
best of all manures; his neighbour follows his ex- 
ample, buys nitrate of soda for 20 acres, incurs con- 
siderable expense, watches his field with anxious looks, 
sees little promise of advantage, gathers in his crop, 
and finds that his experiment is a losing one. This 
is talked of at the Corn-market, reported in the 
county paper, and nitrate of soda is, in the minds of 
many, condemned for ever. But how different would 
have been the result ifa hundred farmers had dressed 
a piece of half an acre under certain instructions, and 
then compared notes? Some would find that they had 
succeeded, others would see no advantage ; but as the 
results would probably be almost balanced, it would be- 
come manifest to the most obtuse understanding, or to 
the most prejudiced mind, that if nitrate often failed, it 
often turned out well; the causes of failure in the one 
case and of success in the other would then be canvassed 
and discussed, new experiments would be suggested, 
and by degrees the land where, and the times when, 
and the crops to which nitrate of soda ean be advan- 
tageously applied would become understood experi- 
mentally. Every man would know the facts, because 
he would have witnessed them, and the evidence of 
our senses is, it must be granted, about the best that is 
procurable. 
Such being our opinion, we say to the farmers and 
gardeners of Great Britain, with Professor Hen- 
slow: ‘Trust not implicitly to the suggestions 
of the most celebrated chemists, nor adopt their 
notions into your practice, without previously mak- 
ing @ set of comparative experiments for yourselves, 
in order to test the value of their suggestions. Secure 
co-operation; act together by hundreds and thou- 
sands in attending to directions, and in registering 
results. Such decided improvements in the art of 
culture will then be struck out for you, that your 
important interests will be able to maintain that 
state of prosperity which is so essential to the general 
well-being of the country.” 
But it may be asked, how is this to be arranged? 
whence are to come the suggestions and directions 
which the cultivators are to follow? to whom are 
we to look with confidence for that superintending in- 
telligence and skilful leading which are indispensable 
to secure the success of such endeavours? We might 
point to the many men ofscience now occupied with such 
inquiries ; to the Daubenys, Henslows, Johnstons, Mad- 
dens, Playfairs, Sollys, and others, as safe and trust- 
worthy guides, whose advice is easily and speedily 
to be procured through the medium of the weekly 
press. But we feel that it is unfair to impose such 
duties on private individuals while there are eyery- 
where Societies in existence whose officers can be 
readily charged with theirexecution. “ If,” says Pro- 
fessor Henslow in one of his letters, “ the arrange- 
ments of our various Agricultural Societies were 
only as complete for securing abundant returns 
of comparative experiments as they appear to be 
perfect for exhibiting fat cattle and fine roots, or 
even for discussing good dinners and promoting good 
fellowship, I should then hope to live long enough to 
see the farming produce of Great Britain double that 
which is now extracted from the soil.” 
Now wecan discover no reason why boca joa 
not be as efficient for one purpose as for an : 
point of fact, the Highland Society has already taken 
up the subject by offering numerous premiums for 
: Agriculture, and we trust 
the rees of the Roy c 
of Sinaia aha to plan, direct, collate, register, 
abstract, and publish, in a very eet form, the 
results of thousands of experiments! The example 
set by the Suffolk farmers shows its practicability, 
and about its importance no one, we think, would 
entertain a doubt. a 2 
Frofessor Henslow, however, inclines to the opinion 
that it would be better to establish a new society for 
the especial purpose of encouraging and directing 
experiments. As the views of so judicious a friend of 
the cultivators of the soil cannot have too much publi- 
city given them, we subjoin the following extract from 
a letter now before us 
“Although you have repeatedly assured practical 
“men of the necessity of experimenting for them- 
“selves, and have probabl y produced some good effects 
“ by so doing, yet I hope you will excuse my once 
“again insisting upon the mecessity of something 
“more being done than merely pointing out to them 
‘ what are the experiments they should undertake, 
“There is no doubt great satisfaction in measuring 
“ the length of an invisible animalcule, and I am one 
a Na ESV SABE NE Ee 
mada ree 
