NEW METHOD OF POTTING PLANTS. 
41 
suffered to remain. Where heath-mould is employed, it ought to be full of roots, 
and be left, to a large extent, in rough irregular lumps, about an inch or so in 
breadth. There is infinitely too much preparing and manipulation in most 
composts ; and the freedom with which Heaths root into lumps of turfy peat at 
once shows that they would be more at home if potted entirely into something 
approaching to the natural texture of the soil in our heatheries or moors. The 
same principle will apply to all soils, and this constitutes a valuable part of the 
system of potting we describe. 
A further part of the plan is to keep the neck of the plant, or that portion of 
the stem next the roots, rather higher in the pot than the level of the soil. This 
is often done with Heaths, and is just as useful to other fine-rooted species. It 
keeps down exuberance, and promotes inflorescence. It saves many a delicate 
plant from being killed by water ; while, by maintaining the vital part in a drier 
state, it makes them less sensitive to the sudden and casual occurrence of cold in 
the winter. 
But the process most conducive to the bushiness of the plants is the frequent 
reduction of their young shoots. This must be very rigidly attended to, when they 
do not of themselves bear a sufficient number of laterals. It may be that the 
branches will require stopping three or four times in the first season ; but this will 
occupy very little time, and is of such extreme moment, that without it not a few 
plants would be quite unsightly, whereas, with its aid, they become the most 
ornamental of our exotic decorations. Where it is rightly practised, it will almost 
necessarily cause the removal of all the early flowers ; but with those plants that 
do not need to be thus treated, and with others that continue to show their 
blossoms despite such pruning, it will be highly advisable to take away all the 
flower-buds as fast as they appear. 
As to the application of the system, it embraces all flowering shrubs, whether 
belonging to the stove or the greenhouse, but more especially those which have not 
been produced by art. Heaths, Pimeleas, Lechenaultias, &c, have all been found 
to be vastly benefited by it. At present, it is not known how long specimens so 
managed will last, after they have begun to flower. We should presume, however, 
that they will continue in beauty for three or four or more years, with only a very 
trifling shift each spring after the second season, and that they may then be 
discarded, to give place for similar progeny. The beauty of a greenhouse or stove 
does not consist in having very large or very old specimens, but in keeping plants 
of a moderate size, that are particularly healthy and lavishly prolific of flowers. 
The appearance of this paper at the period when potting is usually transacted 
will, we trust, induce cultivators to put to the test the plan we have above published. 
Be the issues of their trial what they may, we have met with enough to render us 
very sanguine as to the results, when other things are alike genial. 
vol. x. — no. ex. 
G 
