38 
NEW METHOD OF POTTING PLANTS. 
could be desired, as well as in an admirable flowering condition, were obtained in 
one season. In most instances, their closeness had been produced by repeatedly- 
stopping their shoots ; but there were some in which it had naturally arisen, with- 
out any artificial aid. 
Nor are we stating these facts on the authority of any individual who might 
be supposed to be interested in giving them an exaggerated colouring. "We fully 
examined their correctness for ourselves ; and we do not doubt that many others 
can bear a similar testimony. The age is, we trust, fast sinking away, when the 
wonderfulness of a thing is considered a sufficient reason for decrying it. And we 
would urge those who are seized with amazement by our account, to try the system 
fairly themselves, when, if they do not arrive at the same conclusions, it will most 
probably be through a neglect of other important particulars. It would be absurd 
in us to say that the plan must succeed, wherever it is properly followed ; 
because everything of the sort is, to some extent, dependent on other circum- 
stances. But we feel that we may safely promise, from what we have seen, that, 
where the attendant conditions are all favourable, the system will assuredly produce 
again the good consequences we have noticed. 
That the importance of the plan may be placed in a strong light, we shall 
mention the principal benefits it will entail. It brings the plants nearer to a state 
of Nature, while, at the same time, they have all the appliances which art can give. 
Much as the implicit reliance on Nature's dictates may be deprecated, since, in 
artificial circumstances, plants are often made greatly to excel the beauty they 
reached in the natural ones, there can be no question that, with some classes of 
exotics, an adherence to the general procedure of Nature is decidedly the rational 
and proper course. This is strictly the case in regard to the plants of which we 
treat, and which are mainly pure species of dwarf shrubs. With hybrid produc- 
tions, and straggling species that have to be restrained within certain bounds, 
somewhat different management is requisite. Still, with low shrubs, it is quite 
clear that their existence in a soil which does not impede the extension of the roots 
till they arrive at a given boundary, is in the highest degree favourable to all the 
purposes of the culturist. They advance more healthily and uninterruptedly ; and 
they are better prepared for fulfilling the ends to which they are destined, viz., 
the free development of flowers. 
In the system we are remarking on, therefore, there is an assimilation to 
Nature as far as is desirable ; and the plants subjected to it thrive, for a time, fully 
as well as if they were in the most propitious of their native conditions in this 
respect. Still, there is a possibility, from the too great comparative richness or 
depth of the earth in which they may be planted, from the want of an adequate 
amount of light, from a superabundance of moisture, or from other causes, that 
specimens which have a free range for their roots may be disposed to enlarge them- 
selves more than is necessary, to the retarding of the blooming period, and the pre- 
vention of that ripeness of growth which is indispensable to the formation of 
