SOILS USED BY NURSERYMEN IN POTTING PLANTS* 
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artificial light is incapable of doing, as is proved by the popular opinion, that day- 
light alone displays the true colours, while artificial light, itself decomposed and 
imperfect, is deceptive. Light is also the principal agent in producing the means 
whereby plants may be increased, as seeds will never mature themselves properly 
in the absence of a due degree of this element. 
From these remarks, the necessity of a constant supply of light to all plants 
will be sufficiently obvious, but in the cultivation of plants, either in artificial 
structures or in the open ground, it must be modified and adapted to their parti- 
cular circumstances and habits. As a general rule, however, we may observe, that 
where plants are required to produce seed or fruit, they cannot be too much exposed 
to solar light throughout the whole period of their growth (some few sorts 
excepted) ; and, on the contrary, when flowers alone are desired, they should be 
shaded as much as practicable after the flowers are expanded, though prior to 
this, they should be exposed to solar light as much as is consistent with their 
general habits. Again, most plants that are firmly and fully established in the 
ground, will endure almost any quantity of light, if they are well supplied with 
water at the roots ; but those which have been newly transplanted, require to be 
shaded from the fiercest of the suns rays, otherwise they would be exhausted and 
killed by excessive evaporation. 
Enough, however, has been said to show the great importance of attention to 
this subject in a practical point of view, and we trust what we have advanced will 
have the effect of inducing cultivators to investigate this subject more minutely; as 
we are confident, that by thus consulting the habits of plants, and the reciprocal 
influences subsisting between them and the atmosphere, their systems of cultivation 
may be ameliorated, difficulties which now attend them will be removed, and that 
which is now in many instances a toilsome and unsatisfactory task may be rendered 
a delightful amusement. 
ON SOILS USED BY NURSERYMEN IN POTTING PLANTS. 
An erroneous impression appears to us to have obtained generally amongst 
professional and amateur gardeners, relative to the soil used by nurserymen in 
potting plants, which we are anxious should be removed, as it has tended much 
to retard the superior cultivation of some plants, particularly with those persons 
who are always ready to follow the general practice, without taking the trouble to 
investigate its claims to adoption. We have frequently heard it asserted, that 
when plants are purchased from nurseries, they should be repotted into the same 
soil as that used by the nurseryman ; and so rigorously is this practice adhered to 
by some cultivators, that we much question whether anything but the actual loss 
of the plant, would deter them from using similar soil to that in which the plant 
was received from the nursery. 
