Mar.] GRREN-HOUSE AND CONSERVATORY. 1033 



above it, while strong fleshy rooted plants, biennials and an- 

 nuals, may require a shift of two sizes, but certainly not more 

 at once. Much has been said upon composts and compounds 

 in which to grow certain plants, and many of those which are 

 proposed are as ridiculous as they are useless. All plants grow 

 in soils prepared for them by nature, and are of the simplest 

 description. It has been remarked by one of the best writers 

 on this subject, that out of the three simple earths, viz. pure 

 sand, heath, or wdiat is morc generally, although less correctly 

 called by the name of bog-mould, and virgin loam, composts 

 may be made suitable for any plant ; aquatics, orchedious, and 

 parisatic plants only excepted. From these three compounds, 

 with the addition of vegetable mould, or rather the mould of 

 decayed tree-leaves, and which, when perfectly decomposed, 

 have been denominated by a late cultivator, if not the primum 

 mobile, at least the secimchim mobile of vegetation, can be made 

 of suitable texture for any plant entering into green-house or con- 

 servatory collections to thrive in, provided all other parts of their 

 culture be equally good. Dung, and every species of manure, 

 are seldom used, and never when the end in view is to have 

 neat small flowering plants; but sometimes, for individual pur- 

 poses, and often in regard to stove plants and oranges ; but, in 

 either case, it cannot be even too much decomposed or ameli- 

 orated. As a general rule, but from which there are exceptions, 

 we may state that most of the plants from New Holland, New 

 Zealand, Van Dieman's Land, &c., including the heaths from 

 the Cape of Good Hope, will succeed perfectly well in bog or 

 heath mould, without any other mixture whatever ; and they 

 are also found to succeed equally well in a mixture of that 

 mould, and virgin loam in equal proportions, or nearly so, or 

 with the addition of a part of pure white sand, in proportion as 

 it is wanting in the former, and according to the strength of the 

 latter. 



There are also light sandy moulds to be met with upon many 

 heaths, and in many parts of the country, in which all of these 

 plants will grow ; of this kind of barren mould, that from Kp- 

 ping Forest, about Wanstead House, may serve as an example ; 

 it is this mould alone that has been used so successfully in the 

 Clapton Nursery and elsewhere for some years. It is not the 



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