12 New or rare Hard?/ or Half-hardy Trees and Shrubs 



unlikely occurrence. But even then, when practicable, it is 

 better to confine them in a close moist atmosphere, which, with 

 water over head, and shade, will enable them to exist through 

 the medium of the leaves until growing has commenced, and the 

 roots are in a condition to receive, without injury, the necessary 

 supply. 



It is, however, when there is a deficiency of heat, vegetation 

 languid, and a corresponding danger from excess of moisture, 

 that such precaution is most required, and the contrary practice 

 most hurtful. Among seedlings of tender sorts the mortality 

 from such mal-treatment is truly great ; and, when the impossi- 

 bility of transplanting such without in some shape hurting their 

 few and almost unformed spongioles, scarcely more consolidated 

 than the fluid in which they are so thoughtlessly immersed, is 

 considered, their certain destruction is not to be wondered at. 

 The advantages these derive from the treatment described led 

 me first to examine more closely what I deem a matter of much 

 importance. 



Before quitting the subject for the present, I may here add 

 that the injury inflicted by such treatment is not confined to the 

 plants alone, the soil also is ofttimes irreparably injured. It 

 has been placed between the sides of the pot and the root-bound 

 ball containing the plant, where, being in a comparatively loose 

 state, it receives the whole of the water that is considered suffi- 

 cient to moisten the whole mass ; as, where there is so little 

 resistance, it is as effectually repelled by the dry ball as by the 

 sides of the pot. This reduces what has been added to the con- 

 dition of a puddle, and in this state it stands a good chance of 

 being baked as hard as a brick : at all events, it has been totally 

 unfitted to afford that nourishment to the plant it otherwise 

 would have done. Such consequences may be avoided by ap- 

 plying moisture gradually: but if some time is allowed to elapse 

 there is not so much to fear, even from the usual soaking, as 

 the old and new materials must in the interim have become 

 equally dry ; a state, let it be remembered, indispensable to the 

 thorough incorporation of such materials. 



Folkestone, Oct. 20. 184-1. 



Art. II.I Notices of some neto or rare Hardy or Half-hardy Trees 

 and Shrubs in the Nursery qf Messrs. Rollison of Tooting. By 

 John Scott. 



By the kind permission of Messrs. Rollison, I am enabled to 

 forward to you specimens of some rare and little known shrubs, 

 consisting of hardy and half-hardy species, recently introduced 

 to, and propagated in, this nursery. 



