136 
CULTURAL HINTS. 
scribed the limits of its operation, so long as it can be discovered to exert an 
ameliorating influence, it will be recognised and practised by the intelligent 
cultivator who determines to be satisfied with nothing short of the highest 
standard of excellence attainable, as a step on the way to his promised goal. He 
must ever be as ready to snatch at the little helps, as to seize on the greater. 
Without further preface, we shall now proceed to give a tangible turn to 
these observations by considering a condition connected with the management of 
plants in pots, which is certainly hostile to their prosperity, and, we believe, more 
frequently the result of thoughtlessness than ignorance. We allude to the exposure 
of th'e pots in which plants are grown, to the direct action of a bright sun. 
No cultivator of the most moderate experience can have failed to observe the 
dessicating effects which it produces on the soil which the pot contains. This 
result is the first and most apparent, and may, perhaps, appear to be easily 
remedied by the application of water, and of no further moment ; but it is not the 
only consequence, for it brings in its train a series of evils, which frequently 
accomplish the partial or entire defoliation of the stem, and even the very 
destruction of the vital principle itself. We more than suspect it to be the hinge 
upon which many a healthy specimen has suddenly turned, with a few days of 
sunny weather, to a state fit only for the compost yard. The present supply of 
fluid from the roots is not only cut off, through those which are usually the most 
active being thus deprived of moisture, but the delicate rootlets themselves are also 
injured — withered, and rendered incapable of fulfilling their office ; or, as it is 
technically expressed, " they are burnt." Besides, the mechanical arrangement of 
the soil is disturbed, by the excessive waterings rendered necessary to keep it 
moist washing the particles closer together. 
And yet, when we look at many instances of the practice even of our best 
cultivators, how often do we find the admonition conveyed by repeated injuries and 
disease engendered by the thoughtless exposure of pots to the sun, either slighted 
or entirely disregarded ! We acknowledge that in many cases it is not an easy 
matter to shelter them ; but this is no reason why it should be neglected whenever 
it is practicable to obviate it. There is no genuine obstacle to interfere with those 
pots being immured from the sun's rays, which contain the plants commonly set 
out of the greenhouse in the summer season. Plants so situated are more completely 
laid open to injury from this source, than those retained in the houses or frames. 
The latter are partially protected by the sash-bars ; by the refraction and diffusion 
of light in passing through glass ; and by the shades which are now almost 
universally interposed. The former are without these lenitives, except here and 
there the last ; and they are at the same time open to another evil, which materially 
increases the disparity : there are the variations which are so constantly taking place 
in the state of the soil — its temperature and moisture, as the weather varies from 
wet to windy, or clear and sunny ; and this frequent and sometimes excessive 
inconstancy, renders the roots far more susceptible of harm, both from excessive 
