1843.] 
THE GARDENERS’ 
CHRONICLE 
283 
HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY of LONDON.— 
Four Lectures on CHEMISTRY, in it: icati to 
parties coming forward to oppose the proposal, if the 
S 
Vegetable Physiology and the Arts of Cultivation, will be deli- 
veredin the Meeting-Room of the Society by Mr. E, SOLLY, 
FR. ‘c., Experimental Chemist to the Horticultural Society, 
on Tuurspay, the 11th, 18th, and 25th of May, and ist of June, 
Fellows of the Society are admitted 
may b 
price 10s. 6d. for the Four Lectures. By Order of the Council. 
The Garbeners’ Chronicie, 
SATURDAY, APRIL 29, 1848. 
MEETINGS FOR THE TWO FOLLOWING WEEKS, 
Entomological... - 8 Pm 
Monday, Mayl . + + +) Horticultural Anniversary 1 P, a 
Horticultural . 3 
Tuesday, May 2 
Friday, May 5 . ane 
County Snow,May5 ., 0... Lit 
» Tuesday, May 9, Heartsease, Hammersmith 
Tuesday,May9 =. « 
Wednesday, May 10 
these points that we shall at present confine ourselves. 
st, Zo grant powers to drain—This is to be en- 
trusted to a Board of Commissioners, who are to be 
memorialised by persons wishing to have their land 
drained. The memorialist is to deposit money in 
their hands for defraying the expense of preliminary 
inquiries ; then, when the matter of the memorial is 
ay proved of, he is to deposit a further sum with the 
ommissioners, sufficient for defraying the expenses 
of making further surveys, schedules, maps, plans, 
drawings, sections, and estimates, &c. (c. 3). If the 
Commissioners, after. making inquiry, should decide 
against the prayer of the memorialist (c. 6), or if all 
the conditions required by the bill, after the approval of 
the Commissioners shall have been signified, cannot be 
complied with, then the money that was deposited is 
to be applied to the discharge of the preliminary ex- 
penses incurred ; and if the expense of inquiry, &c. 
is greater than the deposit, then the memorialist is to 
be sued at law for the difference (c. 30). A meet- 
ing’ of all persons interested is to be convened by 
ne ae tS 1e) as A sub-commissioner is to 
Jons at such meeting, m ter 
schedules, &c. (c. 11). Then the a pee of ies. 
fourths in extent (net value) of the land proposed to 
be drained must agree to the execution of it (c. 13) ; 
and, finally, the term proprietor is declared to ime 
clude all persons having any indirect interest in the 
property to be drained (¢. 14, 15). 
. Unless these clauses undergo very material altera- 
tion, they can hardly fail to render the bill inoperative. 
for the conditions are such as few people would take 
the risk of fulfilling. According to this bill, a person 
who would have an estate drained must undertake 
to incur a large and indefinite expense for pre- 
liminary inquiry, and a further expense—the limits 
of which it is, we conceive, impossible to foresee 
In satisfying three-fourths of the varied interests 
that will be concerned in his memorial; and then 
if he fail, he is not only to lose his deposit but 
to be liable to an action for all the expenses 
beyond it to which the Commissioners and. their 
agents may have put him. He must be a bold 
man who. will take such arisk: for where is the indi- 
= Interest in works of drainage to stop? In the 
ea of mill property, the effects of any extensive 
aie may be felt at}ja very considerable distance, 
by i Trivers and their tributaries, never contemplated 
the aoe may have to be included 3 and all 
a. and cost of securing the good-will of half a 
nee Ymay thus be thrown upon the person who may 
Beet the first memorial. To use the words of a 
are euoncent, the first application bearing upon or 
involyoe the drainage of any particular water-course, 
Ainge consideration of the powers, uses, and 
ae s the whole length of that water-course. 
preli a tue that the memorialist is to be repaid his 
oe oe expenses (c. 30), if he finally triumph 
hefiefal ees but, what if his plan, however be- 
patie ae through the opposition of interested 
elreastys y, then he is to be sued for all costs, as 
That: That will never do. 
€ onl 
1 
ane let the memorialist come before the 
ieee oners with maps and evidence, collected at 
ane pie pense, by himself, and state his case. 
Gonimnisaon af out to the satisfaction of the 
eee ie let them at once, without further ex- 
matter for “pecan aot proceed to examine the 
itleetings ee pie employ engineers, convene 
prelimi, me Citterences, and go through all the 
ary Inquiries, charging the expenses upon the 
re of opinion that the drainage ought 
to be executed, or proportionately upon all to be 
benefited by it, or merging it in the general expense 
of the drainage to be afterwards executed under their 
superintendence. We perceive no real difficulty in 
this ; for the preliminary examination of a memorial- 
ist’s case might be as searching as the Commissioners 
should think necessary. In the event of the drainage 
being decided against, after the hearing of interested 
parties, then the costs would have to be paid out of 
the funds to be provided for defraying the expenses of 
the Commission. Should frivolous memorials be appre- 
hended, provided our suggestion were adopted, they 
might be prevented by requiring the memorialist to 
deposit a fixed sum (say 100.) in the hands of the 
Commissioners prior to their proceeding in the inquiry, 
such sum to be forfeited in the event of the final 
decision of the, Commissioners being adverse to the 
memorialist. 
Atall events, it appears to us indispensable that the 
complicated machinery to be put in action by this 
Bill, before any work of drainage can be commenced, 
should be worked and paid for by the Commissioners 
themselves, and not by the memorialists. 
3dly, To strengthen the existing powers for enforcing 
the clearance of drains and ditches.—This is a point of 
no little practical importance, without the ready settle- 
ment of which any general drainage bill must lose 
much of its value. Mr. Pusey proposes that when an 
occupier refuses to clear out his ditches, it shall be 
lawful for the proprietor injured by such refusal, after 
14 days’ notice, to cleanse them at his own expense, 
and then to recover the amount so expended by suing 
the recusant before the Quarter Sessions. This 
seems to us an arrangement which can be productive 
of little real utility. People are not willing to bring 
actions against their neighbours; or if they are 
willing, they will be deterred from doing so by the 
uncertainty of the law, and the doubt they may 
reasonably entertain as to their power of satisfying a 
jury, who have not seen the ground, whether the 
cleansing the drains was necessary or not. We would 
submit that a far better mode of proceeding would be 
to authorize an appeal to a district surveyor, who 
should have power to summon a jury to view the 
drains, and to decide whether they require cleansing or 
not; their decision to be final. The expense of such 
la proceeding might be made to fall on whichever 
| party failed in his appeal ; the appellant paying if the 
| jury decided against him, the respondent in the oppo- 
site case. We confess that we have a great aversion 
to law; and we are persuaded that a clause embodying 
| such powers as those we have now mentioned, would 
be far more agreeable to the country than cleaning out 
ditches without authority, or suits at Quarter Sessions 
to recover expenses, and all the vexatious consequences 
to which such proceedings would inevitably give rise, 
With respect to the power of raising money for the 
purposes of drainage, we have some observations in 
type which want of room compels us to defer till 
next week. 
« My opinion,” says a correspondent, “is, that large 
pots cannot be safely r ded in pref t 
small, except under certain conditions.” As the rea- 
sons assigned for this opinion are different from those 
of “* Observator,” we print the writer's reasons verbatim. 
« Jf large pots are employed, they must be filled 
with turfy soil, or with such other substances as will 
prevent the mass from becoming too compact. But 
some plants with delicate roots require a finer compo- 
sition, others a compost rich with dung. Soils that 
will remain sufficiently open in a bed, or in a quarter 
of a kitchen garden, will nevertheless become too 
compact when employed in a pot. All soils, of which 
the particles have ‘a greater degree of cohesion with 
each other than exists between them and the sides of 
the pot, will collapse, and become more compact than 
if they formed part of an extended mass. The inertia 
ofa large mass prevents the portion at the circum- 
ference from being drawn towards the centre. If a 
be the centre of a plot of 
Ss 
c ground in which a pot is 
g g plunged, filled with the soil of 
b c the same plot, the potted soil 
e 
bee b will be found more compact 
tae a) bc than it would have been had 
ee it not been inclosed by the 
is b c sides of the pot: for, although 
i; the particles 6 6 might tend to 
c 
c collapse toward a, yet they are 
equally drawn in a contrary 
direction, in consequence of the adhesive force exerted 
by particles exterior to them, as at ccc. On this 
principle, the smoother the pot the more will the soil 
collapse. , f 
«[t was above stated to the effect that the inertia 
of a large broad mass prevents the portion near the 
outside from being drawn towards the centre, and it 
may therefore be said that, the larger the pot, the less 
will be the tendency of the soil which it contains to 
become compact. his is in some degree the case 3 
for if room could be found to admit of pots or boxes 
being made large enough, the soil contained would be 
in much the same condition as if lying in a bed or 
quarter of the open ground. Buta collection of plants 
would occupy too much room, and would not be 
portable if grown in such large masses of soil. ‘This, 
however, is not exactly to the point in question. A 
more important consideration is the fact, that before 
the roots could reach the outside, the soil there would 
have become wasted ; all the particles in its composi- 
tion that are readily miscible with water would be 
washed down, and the compost would not be in so 
good a state for supplying the plant with nourishment 
as when first prepared. If a Gooseberry-tree is 
planted in rich ground, and allowed to grow in the 
same place, the soil being undisturbed for many years, 
it does not produce fruit so large as that obtamed by 
yearly trenching and otherwise preparing fresh soil 
immediately in advance of the roots, as 1s done by the 
prize-growers. So also by frequent shifting, and thus 
affording progressively a fresh supply of nourishment, 
a Vine in a pot, which had been struck from an eye, 
was grown by Mr. John Wilson, Gardener, at Milli- 
chope, to the length of 40 feet in the same season in 
which the eye was put in. 
“Tt is true that although nutritive portions vie 
be washed down, or otherwise changed, and althoug! 
these may be again supplied artificially, yet the 
medium in which they are deposited, the bulk of the 
soil, is the same as it was when first introduced. 
It is doubtful, however, if what can be done in this 
way will equal the effect produced by a supply of 
fresh prepared soil. Turning up the soil has the 
mechanical effect of rendering it fit for the easy pro- 
gress of roots|in quest of food; but it has probably 
others of a chemical nature of still greater importance. 
Principles that are lying quiet in a heap of compost 
or manure are roused into powerful activity when 
disturbed by turning the heap. Woody fibre that 
was previously suffering but little change 1s then soon 
broken up, in consequence of being subjected to the 
decomposing effects of fermentation. What takes 
place when a piece of ground is dug or trenched is not 
so evident; but doubtless something analogous does 
ensue. Portions of soil ining different bst 
that were before separated are brought into contact. 
Few soils are so homogeneous as not to contain differ- 
ent principles, the contact of which will occasion some 
degree of chemical action ; and the result of such action 
plants seem not to fail in turning to good account.” 
The objections here taken by our new correspond- 
ent. amount to this:—-Ist, That the soil on the out« 
side of the pot will be exhausted by frequent water- 
ing before the roots can reach it. 2nd, That the 
system of shifting in pot-cultivation has some relation 
to that of digging in the open border, and is equally 
necessary. Both these difficulties may, we think, be 
easily answered. In the first place, the objections 
apply rather to cases where plants are never shifted 
than to such as we have contemplated; but it is not 
fair to argue against a thing from its possible abuse. 
Ifa plant in the open ground never has the ground 
about it disturbed, it will grow more slowly than if it 
has the advantage of occasional digging ; and so, no 
doubt, itis with plants in pots. They will require 
to have the soil occasionally stirred and renewed: but 
that is quite different from the system of continual 
shifting from one pot into another a size larger, to 
which we and others so much object. Undoubtedly, 
the watering which is required by plants in pots will 
have a tendency—a great tendency—to remove from 
the outside of the ball the nutritious elements of the 
soil; but how much more must this be the case in 
small pots than inlarge ones? In fact, it is in part be- 
cause that loss is diminished that we regard permanent 
large pots better than small ones used for a short time 
only. Ifthe pots are sufficiently large, it will belong be- 
fore theroots can reach that part whichis impoverished 
by the washing away of soluble materials. When 
the roots in large pots shall have reached the outside, 
it will then be necessary, no doubt, to transfer the 
plants to still larger. 
In conclusion, we may once for all point to what 
has been done, instead of speculating on what may 
be effected. The admirable specimen of the larger 
bearded Heath, exhibited at the last meeting of the 
Horticultural Society in Regent-street, from the gar- 
den of Lady Antrobus ; and another of the Transpa- 
rent Heath, shown on the same occasion, from Ealing 
Park, were grown without continual shifting, and 
were faultless. 
Ve must still contend that the only real objection 
to the “ one-shift” system is that it is too favourable 
for growth, and renders plants jnconveniently large 
for most people’s space and means. 
CAPE BULBS. 
Brunsyigia (Amaryllis) Josephine and multiflora, and 
Ammiécharis fi 
Tux proper treaument of these bulbs is a subject of 
frequent inquiry in the Gardeners’ Chronicle, and the 
faleata 
