202 



APPLICATION OF PEINCIPLES. 



the vicinity of a never-failing supply of aqueous 

 vapour. If it were surrounded by earth, water would 

 readily collect about it in a condensed state, and the 

 vessels being all open in consequence of being cut 

 through, would rise at once into the interior; but 

 the application of the root end immediately to the 

 earthen bottom of the pot, with which it is so cut as 

 to be nearly parallel, necessarily prevents any such 

 accumulation and introduction of water, unless over- 

 watering is allowed, and this all good gardeners 

 will take care to avoid. An ingenious plan of Mr. 

 Forsyth's is intended to answer this purpose rather 



more perfectly. He 

 puts a small sixty pot 

 {fig. 20, a d) into one 

 of larger size, having 

 first closed up the bot- 

 tom of the former with 

 clay (a) ; then having 

 filled the bottom of the 

 outer pot with crocks, 

 he fills up the sides 

 (c c) with propagating 

 soil, in which his cuttings are so placed that their 

 root ends rest against the sides of the inner pot ; the 

 latter is then filled with water, which 'passes very 

 slowly through the sides until it reaches the cuttings. 

 (See Gardener's Magazine, vol. xi. p. 564.) In many 

 cases, especially in striking such plants as Heaths, 

 gardeners employ a stratum of silver sand, placed 

 immediately over the earth in which such plants 



