1843.] 
THE GARDENERS 
CHRONICLE. 
187 
L{ORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF LONDON. 
EXHIBITIONS at the GARDEN for the year 1843. These 
will take place on the following days; viz., Saturday, May 13; 
Saturday, June 17; Wednesday, July 12, The Garden will be 
opened, on each day, at one o’clock, under the following regu- 
lations :—All Fellows of the Society will be admitted without 
tickets, from one till six o’clock, on signing their names in a book 
at the entrance. Visitors can be admitted only by tickets, to be 
obtained by the personal or written orders of Fellows of the So- 
i N.B. The presentation of the visiting card of a Fellow of 
the Society cannot be regarded as an authority to receive tickets 
Al apply on or before Tuesday, the 18th of 
in at the rate of Three Shillings and Siwpence each 
any number of tickets not exceeding Twrenty-rour; but no 
applications for such tickets will be received after that day. It 
tt convenience to the Society, if the Fellows 
will be delivered to Fellows on their 
written order, at the price of Five Shillings each ticket. 
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. 
The Gardeners’ Chronicie. 
SATURDAY, MARCH 25, 1848. 
MEETINGS FOR THE TWO FOLLOWING WEEKS. 
+ + Zoological, . . . . 4 Bh ma 
Tuesday, Mar. 28 te 
Monday, April3 +. + 
+ _ Entomological 
Horti 
Tuesday, April4 . : 
‘ticultural 
.o3Ginnean 
UFloricultnral 
Geological. 
Wednesday, April . + . Geologic: 
Friday, April7. « «+ Botanical + | 
Suturday, April8 . . . Royal Botanic 
Havine, as we believe, disposed of the introductory 
matter of our correspondent ‘ Observator’s” letter on 
the one-shift system of potting, let us proceed to con- 
sider his details. : 
“When a plant is removed from a smaller toa 
larger pot, its roots, finding no impediment, strike 
through the new layer of soil in a nearly horizontal 
direction, until their further progress is impeded by 
coming in contact with the inside of the pot ; should 
the plant, at this stage, not soon be supplied with a 
larger pot, the roots for the most part will take a 
downward direction until they reach the bottom of 
the pot—still, however, keeping near to its sides, and 
hot often pushing into the centre of the ball of earth.” 
No doubt. “ Thus situated,” says our correspondent, 
“the plant is almost entirely dependent on the occa- 
sional waterings which it receives for its supply of 
nourishment. But if a larger pot has been supplied in 
time, that is to say, before the roots have become 
matted round the inside of the pot, the plant suffers 
no inconvenience ; but should it have stood too long 
in its pot, the principal roots will have descended ‘to 
the bottom, and there will be inextricably intertwined 
with each other, and the plant will be a long time 
before it recovers and acquires a vigorous growth— 
indeed it generally happens that it remains stunted 
and sickly for the rest of its life. The principal roots 
having been destroyed or rendered nearly useless, the 
plant, when it emits new ones, generally produces 
mere fibres, and though they may be more numerous, 
yet they cannot convey that volume of sap to the stem 
which the larger roots would have done. ‘The principal 
Yoots may be considered the grand arteries which con- 
Vey the sap to the stem, and the fibres as indispensable 
auxiliaries, which, with their thousand mouths, run in 
every direction, sucking in all fluids which present 
themselves, and conveying them to the principal roots, 
whence they are passed into the stem. There can be 
ho doubt of the reciprocity of action between the roots 
and branches; but the root does not cease to elongate 
on reaching the side of the pot; but possibly, for a 
time at least, it receives as much nourishment in its 
downward movement as it would have done had it 
Continued its horizontal direction. But, as I have just 
Pointed out, if the principal roots are permitted to 
Continue this downward direction, from which, alas! 
hey rise no more, the growth of the plant is arrested, 
and it will not easily recover.” 
. To all this we have nothing of importance to object ; 
In fact, as far as it goes, it is in favour of the proposed 
System of not shifting. We fear, however, our agree. 
Ment with “Observator’”’ has almost arrived at its 
termination. 
“Now,” says he, “with regard to the ‘one-shift 
System,’ it is evident that when a young plant is trans- 
ferred from a small to a very large pot, its roots meet- 
ing with no obstruction, proceed directly to the sides 
ane pot, and thence to the bottom ; some solitary 
wae may possibly re-penetrate the ball of earth, but it 
ll, in ‘a great measure, after the leading roots have 
Passed through it, be but of little service to the plant.” 
he ere we find as many errors as sentences, It does 
mma to us at all evident, that when a plant in a 
ven pot is transferred to a very large _one, the 
a ng roots will gallop off to the extreme limit of their 
W boundary. No such growth ever takes place ; 
tae We trust to convince ‘‘ Observator” of his mis- 
€; by pushing his argument a little further. 
Sup- 
posing the large pot to be ten yards wide, does he 
imagine that the little plant, turned out of the little 
pot, will send its little roots fifteen feet in every di- 
rection, commanding them to grow as fast as they can 
till they reach the sides of the huge pot, and then only 
to stop? Such a result could scarcely occur, unless 
there was some powerful attraction between the roots 
of a plant and the pot it grows in ; and we presume 
 Observator” will hardly contend for that. 
Well, then, if no such event as ‘*Observator” de- 
scribes would occur in such a pot as we describe, it is 
sufficiently evident that there must be a limit some- 
where to the horizontal spreading of the roots; and 
upon this fact the whole argument may be said to 
inge. We conceive that the reason why the roots of 
a plant always direct themselves tothe sides of a small 
pot are these: in the first place, all plants spread their 
roots, or some of them, horizontally, in search of food, 
and in order to gain room to branch; if they turn 
down when they touch the sides of the pot, it is be- 
cause it is easier for: them to do so than to double 
back. But if the pot were not small, they would not 
reach the sides of the pot, consequently they would 
not turn down; but, on the contrary, they would bur- 
row among the mass of earth in which they are 
placed. ‘The leading roots will not pass through it, 
but they willthrow off laterals in all directions, and pro- 
fitimmediately by the fertilising ingredients with which 
they may come in contact ; and there will be this in- 
estimable advantage in addition, that the young and 
tender roots, instead of finding themselves in contact 
with a substance sometimes hot and sometimes cold, 
dry one hour and soaked with moisture the next, will 
be immersed in a medium of uniform temperature 
and moisture, or at least not subject to violent 
changes. 
The extent of these changes Gardeners are hardly 
aware of: a few years ago we took the trouble to as- 
certain them, and we found in a conservatory, in the 
months of May and June, that the temperature of the 
soil in a small flower-pot was as low as 40° at 
one period of the day, andas high as 90° at another 
period. 
“ Observator,” indeed, admits the importance of the 
principal roots making laterals: “The principal roots,” 
he says, “ ought to be encouraged to make fibres by all 
possible means, and this they will very readily do if 
they receive a slight check every time that they reach 
the sides of the pot: this may be done without allow- 
ing the roots to become matted. It is true that the 
leading roots of most plants put forth lateral fibres in 
their progress, when they are not checked ; but they 
are much more liable to do so when a temporary stop 
is put to their elongation, or their direction is changed 
from horizontal to perpendicular.” 
Nothing can be more true than that slight checks 
are favourable to the ramification of roots; nothing 
can be more untrue than that the sides of the pot, and 
the obstacle they present to onward progress, are essen- 
tial to this result—quite the contrary; mechanical 
obstacles in the earth, a little difference in humidity, 
will produce the same effect, to say nothing of that 
natural tendency which nature has given roots to 
ramify, in order that they may change their pasturage 
and visit new sources of supply. The natural branch- 
ing of roots in the absence of all mechanical interfer- 
ence is plainly shown in those cases where roots are 
formed in water or in wet air. In fact, the power of 
ramification inherent in roots is one of the most beau- 
tiful instances of design that we meet with in so fer- 
tile afield as that of vegetation, for it effectually com- 
pensates for their want of the power of moving from 
place to place. This is so very obvious and well- 
known a fact, that we cannot but wonder at our corre- 
spondent adding such a sentence as the following : 
«¢ In the common method of potting, this advantage 
at least is gained, that the roots, being checked, throw 
out an abundance of fibres, and these valuable auxili- 
aries ramifying in all directions through the ball of 
earth, extract all the nourishment it may contain, and 
thus make the most of the small space allotted them. 
For this reason I think that the common method of 
shifting from size to size is likely to prove in the end 
more efficacious than the ‘ one-shift system.’ ”’ 
Surely no gardener can be ignorant that the produc- 
tion of a large quantity of fibres in the centre of balls of 
earth in small pots is precisely what does not happen ; 
and if it did, of what use would it be? In the centre 
of the ball of a flower-pot little moisture penetrates, 
and that circumstance alone is an effectual bar to the 
production of roots in the direction of the centre, even 
if it were not prevented by the rapid consumption of the 
organisable matter contained in it by the first roots 
that get there when it is still open. 
Passing from these considerations, “‘ Observator” 
rroceeds to another series of objections to the one- 
shift system, more valid, and requiring a separate con- 
sideration, which they shall haye next week. 
Mr. Pusey on Wednesday week brought into Par- 
liament his Bill for facilitating the Drainage of Land, 
and Lord Lincoln, on behalf of the Government, did 
the same with"the Sewerage of Towns Bill. We have 
therefore to express our hope that the two objects to 
be effected by those bills will receive the most con< 
siderate attention of our Agricultural Members, and 
that their care will be extended to future profit 
as well as to immediate benefit. They must not 
forget that it is more difficult to cure an evil than 
to prevent one; and that whether or not the two 
measures are combined, they may severally be made 
conducive, by scientific administration, to incalculable 
advantage to the country—the drainage of land by a 
profitable distribution of the ‘drain-water, and the 
sewerage of towns by a preservation of the refuse for 
manure to the land. We must refer our readers back 
to our former articles on this subject, when we can- 
|.vassed Mr. Denton’s suggestions, for an elucidation of 
our views. 
Tux increase of the population in the rural dig. 
tricts of the country, and the consequent superabun- 
dance of labourers, has given rise to many schemes by 
which the wants of the unemployed might be sup~ 
plied. Emigration naturally suggests an immediate 
relief, and acts as bleeding does in case of too great 
fulness of blood in the human body. But if the 
blood be the life of man, the people is the strength of 
a nation ; and it is only in very peculiar cases that 
the diminution of either is conducive to the general 
health. Useful and profitable employment not only 
feeds the population, but converts labour into wealth ; 
and if we can at the same time save the food which 
is uselessly consumed by the idle, and add to the 
general wealth by increased production, we confer a 
double benefit on society. The great point is to find 
out the best means of doing so ; for by attending only to 
the immediate evil to be remedied, without considering 
the more remote consequences, we may act like an 
unskilful physician, who removes the symptoms of a 
disease without radically curing the patient. 
We shall devote a few short papers to the conside- 
ration of this important question, examining the 
various schemes which have been suggested, and their 
immediate and more remote consequences; and, 
without presuming to decide dogmatically, we shall 
suggest what appears to us, on the whole, the most 
useful and practical means of giving additional em- 
ployment to our Agricultural labourers. 
The most obvious mode of relieving those who are 
in want ofemployment is to set them to work, at fair, 
but moderate wages, without any expectation of de- 
riving profit from their labour, if not with a certainty 
f loss. As a temporary relief, this is no doubt 
highly praiseworthy, and is the most rational way in 
which charity can-be bestowed. By judicious ma- 
nagement, a very small sum, comparatively, will do 
much more good than a much larger distributed gra- 
tuitously. By setting men to do the work which 
otherwise would have been done by horses and ma- 
chinery, we give useful employment and feed the 
poor; but if this is done at a loss, it cannot be 
expected that the example will be generally followed, 
and the difference between the value of the work and 
the cost of it, is a loss to the community. In_parti- 
cular cases of distress it may be advisable, and is, at 
all events, a ‘commendable charity, to give employ- 
ment to the idle at any loss; not only to relieve want, 
but also to keep up the moral character of the people, 
which nothing tends more to corrupt than great indi- 
gence and idleness, unless it be excessive riches. But, 
as a general scheme of useful labour, which shall give 
increased employment to an increasing number of 
labourers, something{must be devised to make the la- 
bour profitable to those who employ their capital to 
this purpose. Manufactures generally originate in a 
surplus of labour, beyond what is required to feed the 
nation ; but when manufactures have increased be- 
yond the demand for the ities 
° 
is 
lation has started up fully 
must soon be a 
surplus of Agricultural Jabourers; and means 
must be found for their profitable employ- 
ment; the subdivision of land certainly gives 
sumed by them. The example of France, where 
landed ‘property is subdivided by the law to 
dency is confessedly to impoverish the nation. Tres . 
land, where occupations are small beyond credibility, 
owes its poverty chiefly to this source. A family can 
exist on the produce of an acre, or less, of potatoes ; « 
but this acre cannot afford profitable employment for 
greatest possible extent, practically shows that this  ~ 
does not diminish individual poverty, while its ten~ _ 
