CULTURAL HINTS. 
137 
heat, and excessive wet. The labour of plunging is far from adequate to that 
required for extra watering ; neither is the loss of those roots which sometimes 
push through the bottom commensurate with the injury which the mass receive 
from exposure, and its concomitant, additional watering. 
The means for protecting the pots of plants kept in houses, however, is not 
quite so manifest ; but, we are persuaded, far more might be done than has yet 
been attempted expressly with a view to the mitigation of this evil. Much might 
be effected in the way of arrangement, by the judicious intermixture of prostrate 
species, amongst those which leave their pots naked and exposed ; others may be 
shielded by early prevailing upon the branches to spread so as to project beyond 
the pot ; and the shoots of many may be bent and trained downwards so as almost 
to conceal the pots from view, as we now and then see practised with Chinese 
Azaleas, leguminose climbers, and a few other things. And these latter methods 
would have a far more extensive influence on the health and copious flowering of 
the plants, than that derived immediately from the pots being covered. 
Exuberant growth would be prevented, and maturity promoted ; the check on the 
upward current of the sap would cause it to expand more liberally in lateral 
developments ; and we believe, also, that in the autumn much of the shading 
practised in plant-houses might be safely and beneficially dispensed with, provided 
they were sufficiently defended. Plants from lower latitudes which occupy 
exposed stations in their native locality, must evidently experience a far more 
intense light than in England ; hence it appears irrational to diminish it still 
further. Those plants which are naturally found in situations where they are 
screened from the direct action of the sun, will of course demand some amount of 
shade ; but others, such as Cape Heaths for instance, will thrive as well in the 
full blaze of a midsummer's sun, if precautions are taken to ward off its beams 
from the pots, as though the whole plant were shaded ; and their shoots will be 
far more completely ripened, and thereby less liable to suffer in winter. If the 
pots however are not shaded, the leaves sicken and fall off, and growth is impeded 
and weakened or entirely stopped. 
The natural shade which the stems and foliage of plants afford to the roots, is 
often most untastefully prevented by training those of a prostrate habit in an 
upright position, with the avowed intention of showing them to greater advantage. 
In some plants this end may be partly answered, but a contrary result is far more 
general ; they are robbed of that free-waving elegance of growth with which 
nature had invested them, and which so much enhances the effect of their floral 
beauty. 
Orchidaceous plants, which from the secluded atmosphere of the houses devoted 
to them, can hardly demand it for the sake of shade, have frequently the material 
that envelopes the roots surrounded with and forming a site for the growth of 
Ferns and Lycopodiums. If this serves no other purpose than that of ornament, 
it is worthy of imitation. And a modification to circumstances of the same 
VOL. XII. NO. CXXXVIII, T 
