Evils of indiscriminate watering after shifting. II 



The atmosphere is, therefore, a mixture which unceasingly 

 receives and supplies oxygen, azote, or carbonic acid, by means 

 of a thousand exchanges of which it is now easy to form a just 

 idea, and the details of which a rapid analysis will now enable 

 us to appreciate. 



( To he continued. ) 



Art. II. On the Evils of indiscriminately watering Plants in Pots 

 immediately after being shifted. By N. M. T. 



To insert cuttings of plants, particularly those of a soft-wooded 

 or succulent nature, into moist materials, before the wounds 

 made in preparing them are healed over, is often attended with 

 fatal consequences, from the moisture finding its way into the 

 pores of the plant, thereby causing putrefaction and decay. 



Now the woody parts of plants, being more consolidated and 

 less porous than their roots, are altogether less calculated to 

 imbibe an undife portion of moisture, yet we find that even these 

 do so to a most injurious extent, and therefore we may reason- 

 ably conclude that roots mutilated and placed in the same cir- 

 cumstances would have a greater chance, from their peculiar 

 organisation, to suffer from such a cause ; nor can there remain 

 a doubt that they do so. This points out as most injudicious, 

 the practice of turning plants out of their pots, reducing their 

 balls, as the case may be, thereby lacerating every fibre, and 

 placing every rootlet in a worse position than a cutting, and 

 then finishing the operation by giving a good drenching of water, 

 which, as we have already seen, must make dire havoc among 

 the previously reduced channels by which the plant receives its 

 food. 



Such is, in a great measure, the cause of delicate plants suf- 

 fering so much from shifting, of the check they receive unless 

 the operation be carefully performed, and consequent loss of 

 time in recovering from its effects. Still this is an every-day prac- 

 tice, that has descended to us hallowed by the custom of ages, 

 and sanctioned by the highest authorities. Who ever heard of 

 directions for shifting or potting plants that did not end thus ? — 

 " Give the whole a good watering, to settle the mould in the 

 pots, and the operation is completed." 



After shifting or transplanting plants in dry hot weather, 

 when an arid atmosphere causes, by excessive evaporation, an un- 

 usual drain upon the roots, the necessity of a supply of water 

 will soon become apparent ; and administering it under such cir- 

 cumstances is less injurious than under any other, from the activity 

 maintained in every part of the plant rendering stagnation an 



