84 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE NEW SYSTEM OF POTTING PLANTS. 
according to its necessity, the crude aliment which is appropriate to its tempera- 
ment ; or, 2nd, Whether it be acted upon solely by the external agents, air, water, 
light ; electricity producing and keeping up a sort of galvanic process, which 
prepares the sap and propels or attracts it into suitable channels. 
The mind is lost in the contemplation ; and perhaps it would be more wise- 
certainly more pious— to refer the entire train of vital phenomena to the fiat of 
Creative Wisdom. It is sufficient for the purposes of Horticultural Science to 
observe results ; and, by studying the products of chemical analysis, to apply those 
manures or composts to individual plants, which that analysis indicates. Much 
remains to be learned before the most skilful shall be able to do this to any good 
purpose ; but scientific culture is on the advance. 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE NEW SYSTEM OF POTTING 
PLANTS.* 
At no period have the principles of Horticulture been so widely diffused and 
successfully applied as the present. 
Public competition and award have greatly tended to excite a spirit of private 
emulation, and have given rise to many ingenious experiments, and led to many 
valuable practical results, in every department of gardening. Whatever may be 
the balance of merit and demerit, in the immediate and remote influence of horti- 
cultural exhibitions, it is certain that to the encouragement they have held out to 
the practical part of the profession is in a great measure owing the large advance- 
ment which has been and is now being made in the various branches of floriculture, 
whether as it refers to the production of fine plants or blossoms. 
It is on the former that the most obvious effects have been produced, seeing 
that, in attempting to attain to higher excellences in the ultimate objects of 
cultivation, special attention has to be directed to means of attaining a comparatively 
greater maturity of growth, in connexion with uniform development of bloom. 
That the stated periods for public competition are often unfavourable to the 
timely production of one class of plants, is too well known to require further 
notice, and, though inevitable in its consequences, it has not failed in securing a 
further knowledge of the means of adapting an appropriate treatment to meet such 
exigencies. But the same cause has also, in conjunction with the desired attainment 
of superior growth, been attended with other unfavourable effects, in over- 
stimulating the growth by an excessive application of fertilising agency, subjecting 
the plants to a higher temperature than was equally favourable to the production 
of bloom. 
* This paper has been composed, and kindly transmitted to us, by Mr. William Wood, one of 
the skilful foremen at Messrs. Henderson's Nursery, Pine-apple Place. 
