88 OBSERVATIONS ON THE NEW SYSTEM OF POTTING PLANTS. 
the agencies which lead to a higher and ultimate effect in the attainment of i 
exuberant growth, are invariably found to exert, through the same medium, an ! 
opposing tendency upon the predisposing causes of fertility. : 
It is, however, in proportion to the attainment of a system of cultivation which 
embodies a progressive and accumulated maturity of growth, that an equally 
progressive step can be made towards the ultimate object of all ornamental ' 
cultivation-bloom. 
The present modes of culture are, more than at any previous period, combining 
the investigations of science with the deductions of practice, though time-rooted 
prejudices have hitherto proved obstacles to the gaining a knowledge of first 
principles, and to their application to the existing forms and habits of professional 
experience. 
In testimony of the approximation of the present age to a comparatively 
perfect system of cultivation, there is perhaps no instance of higher interest than 
the one which involves a mode of culture, which has for its ultimate object a 
constitutional maturity of groioth^ by dispensing with the attendant risk, and 
restrictive influence of intermediate shifts from smaller to larger pots. 
The principle upon which such a course of practice is founded is now being 
successfully applied by the most eminent cultivators, and the same principle, so 
easily adapted to the stronger-rooting division of ornamental plants, has also been 
rendered applicable to those the most difficult to rear. 
It is well known that growers of plants for public competition have often 
urged the difficulties and disadvantages attending the purchase of plants, which 
may have received a treatment in some respects opposite to that which they are 
wishful to adopt ; and in many instances they have considered it essential to the 
accomplishment of their object, that the plants should have been subject to their 
system of management from the first, or initiatory, stage of growth. 
These disadvantages are however now being overcome by a mode of potting 
(subject to a corresponding treatment) which, not unexpectedly, has been a subject 
of surprise to some, and a stumbling-block to others, who in asserting its impracti- 
cability, because contrary to the ordinary method, have failed to apprehend the 
principles upon which such a course of practice is founded. 
The rule which is implied in the principle now adverted to, may be defined as 
follows :— that plants^ the most difficult to rear^ ought to he removed from their 
youngest state of growth^ into the largest-sized pot in ichich they are to he exhihited as 
specimens. 
However oposite to prevalent opinion and practice such a rule may appear 
to those who are unaccustomed to view facts in the light of comprehensive truths, 
it may nevertheless be proved consistent with the first principles of horticulture, 
and rendered conformable to general practice. 
Having stated the rule, the following directions are necessary in the mechanical 
process of potting. " Take a sixteen or twelve sized pot, place three inches of 
