110 
THE NEW SYSTEM OP POTTING. 
interruption^ and if anything occurs to check it during the period of vegetation, the 
plant will suffer in proportion to the amount of interruption 
From these statements, it appears that whatever tends to protract or suspend 
the reciprocal action of the organs of plants, will, in due proportion, impair their 
vital energy ; and it is the adaptation of the accumulative system, to secure a 
continued and uninterrupted supply of those fluids which are essentially necessary 
for mature growth in plants, that constitutes its advantage and superiority over 
every other mode of cultivation; and this advantage is attained by transferring 
plants, in their young and excitable state, to large masses of soil, of a texture 
and quality adapted to their growth, and so mechanically arranged as to enable 
their tender organs progressively to assimilate their food without being liable to 
excess of moisture, or to be retarded in their after-growth. 
One of the strongest arguments against the adaptation of the restrictive system 
in the shifting of plants, to attain a simultaneous and accumulative vigour, is found 
in its tendency to reverse the laws of Nature in regard to the formation and 
disposition of the roots. This is an evil inseparable from the ordinary modes of 
cultivation. The natural function of roots being the absorption of food through the 
medium of their extremities or spongeoles^ it will plainly appear that their capability 
of answering this important end will be in proportion as the modes of cultivation 
assimilate so near to Nature, as to admit a position by which they will be enabled 
to extend and ramify in search of those elementary substances peculiar to their 
respective organs. In admitting this view of the subject, it will probably be found 
that the amount of food thus obtained will be commensurate with the diffusion of 
the roots over a given surface. 
These opinions are strengthened by their coincidence with the physiological fact, 
that " roots augment in diameter simultaneous with the stem, and under the 
influence of exactly the same causes f." From this principle an important inference 
is drawn in favour of the present argument ; namely, that an inverted or horizontal 
position of the stems and branches being calculated to diminish their vigour and 
dispose to precocious fertility, similar effects will attend an inverted or circular 
direction of the roots, by limiting their expansive movement, and lessening their 
exposure to the indispensable influence of atmospheric agency. 
This view of the question will probably suggest a remark, that successful 
cultivators would avert such an unnatural position of the roots, by reshifting 
previous to their being so far advanced ; to which it will be sufiicient to reply, that 
such a mode of transferring plants previously to their being tolerably established, 
would not only be opposite to successful practice, but attended by a risk with 
which few practitioners would venture to engage. That plants of slow and rigid 
habits (and others proportionately) should be fairly established in their respective 
stages of growth, previously to being further excited, is sufficiently well known ; 
* Theory of Horticulture, p. 51. 
t Liiidley's Theory of Vital Actions. 
