522 



PRACTICE OF GARDENING. 



Part III. 



cut it away. Strip off some of the lower leaves. Replant in the new pots. Set the 

 plants in the bark-bed, leaving the pots partly out, lest the first heat should be too 

 strong. There should be a distance of seven inches from pot to pot. Water full-rooted 

 plants gently, to settle the mould. Plants divested of roots are not at present to receive 

 water. 



2760. Second intermediate sliifting. The roots of large plants which were shifted in 

 J\Iarch should be examined at the end of May, or in June. If they have filled the pots, 

 it will be necessary to shift them into pots of an increased size, so as to admit new com- 

 post to the extent of an inch all round the old ball. The diameter of the cradle at top 

 should be nine inches ; the depth twelve, including an inch of pearly gravel at the bottom. 

 If the roots are matted, carefully disentangle them: prune oflp old fibres, or not, ac- 

 cording as the root has been spared or retrenched. In all cases, cut away unsound parts 

 of the root, and slip off a few of the oldest leaves. After replanting, disti-ibute the pots 

 eight inches apart over the surface of the bed, without plunging them to their full depth, 

 till the heat of the renewed tan is ascertained. 



2761. M'Pkail says, " If in March you have any nurse-pines a year old, shift and repot them at this sea- 

 son. Having a bed prepared for them, strong enough to raise a good heat, take the plants and tie their 

 leaves together carefully; then turn them out one after another, and cut all their roots off close to the 

 stem ; and if the stems of them be bare of roots, or appear rotting or black, cut a part of them off up to the 

 quick. Hub the mould clean from the stems, divest them of a few of the lower leaves, and pot them in 

 good rich mould, in small pots suitable to the size of the plants, and plunge them in the tan up to their 

 rims. Let all this work be done in one day, if it be convenient. Keep a strong heat about them, and give 

 them no air nor water till they have struck root and begin to grow; but remember, the earth should be 

 moist in which they are potted, for no plants can make shoots without moisture. When large succes- 

 sion plants have been divested of their roots, and potted in the month of March, they will probably by this 

 time have filled the pots with roots; if so, they ought to be shifted into pots a size larger, just large 

 enough to admit of mould falling easily round their ball. If they were not shifted when the roots begin to 

 get matted, it would check them, and probably make them fruit in August or September. In August or 

 September, the plants are again shifted into pots large enough to admit earth easily round their balls be- 

 tween their roots and the sides of the pots." In these pots, he lets the plants remain in general till the 

 fruit is over. (Gard. Bern. 82.) 



2762. M'Fhail and Speechly agree in remarking, that " some large kinds of pine-apple plants require 

 three seasons to grow before they can bring large-sized fruit, such as the black Antigua, the Jamaica, the 

 Ripley, &c. ; therefore, in the month of April or May, after they have been planted upwards of a year, it 

 is best to take them out of the pots, and to cut of!" all their roots close to the stem, or leave only a few 

 which are fresh and strong, and then plant them again in good earth in clean pots, and plunge the pots in 

 a tan-bed with a lively heat in it. After this process a stronger heat than usual must be kept in the house, 

 till the plants have made fresh roots and their leaves be perceived to grow, when a little water may be 

 given to them, which, together with a good bottom and top heat, will make them grow finely." 



2763. Nicol recommends a general potting of the succession plants in August, when the fruit are aU or 

 nearly all cut ; removing the old stocks from which the fruit had been cut to make room for them in the 

 fruiting-pit. "The nurse-plants now become the succession; the succession the fruiters for next season, 

 and the croAvns and suckers produced by the plants whose fruit have been cut, occupy the nursing-pit." 

 {Kal. 410.) The succession plants, before removal into the fruiting-pit, must be shifted into pots of about 

 eleven or twelve inches diameter, and fourteen or fifteen inches deep. The plants should be plunged en- 

 tirely in old tan to within an inch or two of their brims, keeping them quite level, and eighteen or twenty 

 inches centre from centre. Great care must be taken to keep the heat of the bark-bed moderate and 

 steady, lest the plants should start into fruit, which, if they did, they would be next to lost. I would 

 rather have a one-year-old than a two-year-old plant show now, as the loss would evidently be less; but 

 frequently the former will bring a better fruit than the latter in the end of the season. Some of the succes- 

 sion plants, potted from the nurse-pit in August, may require repotting in November ; but, in general, not 

 till March, when the plants are to be shaken out of their pots, and replaced in the same or similar pots 

 (seven or eight inches diameter, by nine or ten deep) in fresh mould, placing some gravel at bottom. The 

 plants are then to be replunged (the bark-bed being refreshed, &c. agreeably to the general mode of man- 

 agement laid down in Subsect. 8.) at the distance of fifteen inches from each other. In this state they re- 

 main till May, when they are reshifted with their balls into pots a size larger (nine or ten inches diameter, 

 and twelve deep), and plunged tiU August, v/hen they are shifted into fruiting-pots (eleven or twelve 

 inches diameter, and fourteen or fifteen deep) and removed to the fruiting-pit as above described. 

 (,Kal. 413.) 



2764. Griffin shifts his succession plants for the second time, in March, into pots nine inches in dia- 

 meter, by eight inches deep, " turning each singly out of its present pot, with the ball of earth entire 

 around its roots, unless any appear unhealthy or any ways defective, when it is eligible to shake the earth 

 from the roots, and trim ofF all the parts that appear not alive. He plunges them in the bark (refreshed 

 as at each shifting) eighteen inches from plant to plant in the row, and twenty inches' distance row from 

 row." It is to be observed here, that Griffin's practice, in not divesting the plants entirely of their balls of 

 earth at this shifting, agrees with Baldwin's, but differs from that of all the other authors quoted. Griffin, 

 it is alleged, obtains larger fruit ; and Baldwin, by his practice, fruits the plants a year sooner, that is, 

 in fifteen and eighteen months. 



2765. Baldwin takes up the crowns and suckers planted in the tan in September in the succeeding April ; 

 divests them of all their roots, which " must not," he says, " be taken off at any future transplanting," 

 ans! put into pots of five, six, or seven inches' diameter, according to the size of the plant. About the mid- 

 dle of the following June, when the pots are beginning to be filled with roots, take out the plants with 

 their balls entire, and put them into pots about nine inches in diameter ; replunge them into your bed, and 

 Jet them remain till the end of September. {Cult, of Anan. p. 15.) 



2766. llie practice of shaking off the balls of earth, and cutting off the loive^' roots of pities 

 in the second year's spring shifting, has at first sight an unnatural appearance, and vari- 

 ous theorists,, and some gardeners, recommend shifting the plants from first to last with 

 their balls entire. On attentively examining the pine-plant, however, it will be found, tliat, 

 in its mode of rooting, it may be classed with the strawberry, vine, and crowfoot, which 

 throw out fresh roots every year, in part among, but chiefly above the old ones. This 

 done, the old ones become torpid and decay, and to cut them clear away, ff it could be 

 done in all plants of this habit, would no doubt be assisting nature, and contribute to the 



