BO 



sary operations required to keep them in a good 

 state of growth ; I mean those only which are 

 cultivated in pots. The quantity of earth con- 

 tained in a flower pot being in comparison so 

 small, to that which is requisite to the support 

 of the generality of plants, it must be supposed 

 that unless it is changed or augmented in due 

 season, they will soon exhaust every particle 

 of vegetative matter contained therein, though 

 frequently assisted by proper water, which 

 doubtless contains a large portion of the food 

 of vegetables — The consequence of which is to 

 the weaker growing, and tender kinds, that its 

 salts being dissolved, and the sandy particles 

 which kept it in a free open state washed away 

 by the frequent and long continued ablutions, 

 it becomes, as noticed in the case of ill-drained 

 pots for seeds, sour and coagulated ; and the 

 plant, being no longer able to draw its proper 

 nourishment from it, must inevitably decline, 

 and at last becomes a nuisance to the collec- 

 tion, by breeding insects and filthiness : to the 

 stronger sorts, though in a different manner, 

 it will be no less pernicious, by starving them, 

 and thereby occasioning them to dwindle into 

 naked stems, and awkward unsightly forms. 



