PRUNING EXOTIC PLANTS. 
37 
Perhaps the most striking change which plant-culture has undergone in the last 
century is in respect to the attention at present bestowed on individual plants. 
Formerly, as we have said, greenhouse and stove plants were cultivated in masses. 
All were potted at the same period, all treated alike, or nearly so, as regards soil, 
water, &c., and if a general surface of foliage, sprinkled here and there with two 
or three imperfect flowers, was realized, the cultivator's wishes were attained. 
How unsatisfactory must such a system appear when pictured concurrently with 
the practice of our more enlightened culturists ! 
In existing establishments of any note, the object is to obtain specimens ; to 
make each plant beautiful in itself; and to exhibit all its beauties to the best advan- 
tage. To effect this, it is treated as an independent object ; its actual condition 
and wants are watched and attended to ; it is placed so far from the rest that it 
can receive the benefit of light and air ; and by this means it is rendered so 
symmetrical that its appearance is rather improved than injured by the isolation. 
It was necessary that we should thus enter upon the main distinction between 
the past and present plans of cultivation, to make the propriety of our subsequent 
remarks and recommendations apparent. And having explained that handsome 
specimen plants are now justly preferred to the shapeless and ragged things which 
are commonly associated in groups, we go on to describe one, and the principal, 
of the operations necessary to reduce them to that symmetry and perfection of 
form which shall simultaneously render them most agreeable to be gazed upon at 
all seasons, and very much increase their fertility. 
The problem, then, which we have to solve is, how healthy plants may be 
retained within prescribed limits, made to assume given figures, to grow in a dense 
and regular manner, and to produce an infinitely greater abundance of flowers than 
they are wont to do, provided proper measures are taken for regulating their 
potting, watering, and all matters connected with the roots. We also propose 
showing how sickly and weakly specimens, if similarly attended to at the roots, 
may be speedily renovated, and established in a vigorous and prolific condition. In 
this effort, we believe we shall embrace the interests of all classes of cultivators, 
and as the treatment we advocate is divested of all intricacy, and is as easily 
carried out as it is certain in its application, we cordially hope that it may be 
received with the credence it deserves, and universally acted upon. 
Plants in a state of nature have, it may be observed, an invariable tendency 
to grow symmetrically, unless when encumbered by other specimens. Beauty of 
form is therefore imparted by that Power who best knows the predilections of his 
creatures, and is, in fact, never departed from, naturally, except for some specific 
purpose, or by the influence of some inimical agent. But in artificial cultivation 
there are so many circumstances that oppose or subvert this natural disposition, 
that the aid of man is imperatively called for to assist in eliciting the propensity 
when dormant, or, more frequently, to check any inclination to shoot beyond it. 
With the latter we have here to deal. 
