MANAGEMENT OF A FEW SPECIES OF BIGNONIA AND TECOMA. 
255 
The sanguineness of our expectations from so trivial a change may expose us 
to some degree of ridicule ; and however much we may disregard this, we should 
regret any influence it might have on individuals in deterring them from personally 
testing the truth of our calculations. Let us, then, add, that the propriety of 
using shallow pots, and the benefits which will result from their employment, are 
so completely wrapt up in a fundamental rule of culture, which all enlightened men 
acknowledge, and which is every day gaining fresh tributes of praise, that the one 
and the other must fall together. The rule we have in view, is that of retaining 
the roots of plants as near as practicable to the top of the earth. It has been 
prized and acted upon by fruit-growers for a very long time ; and though floricul- 
turists have been too slow in following their example, — as they are in several 
other important matters, — they have at length, we trust, been fully awakened to 
its extreme rationality and usefulness. Let us further suggest that we do not 
look for such extraordinary benefits from the use of shallow pots alone, but from 
this in concert with other equally excellent plans which are now just beginning to 
create the attention they demand. 
To Bignonias, the foregoing advocacy of shallow pots is singularly applicable. 
Placed, too often, in some dark corner, where the rays of the sun never reach the 
soil in which their roots are rotting or starving, they are planted in a very large or 
very small pot, and, while their stems are trained over the roof, and duly exposed 
to light, it is a topic of wonder that they do not flower. Not a few who pass for 
good cultivators imagine that if the leaves and branches of plants have an adequate 
supply of light and air. they must bloom successfully. The absurdity of such a 
notion is, however, grossly palpable. Crude, uncongenial, superfluous, or improper 
food, can never be rightly assimilated ; and no more efficient auxiliary preventive 
for these evils can be found than that of compelling the roots to spread themselves 
just beneath the surface of the soil by having pots too shallow to admit of their 
penetrating deeply. For the efficacy of such pots in inducing fruitfulness is not 
wholly due to their bringing the roots within the action of the air, but to their 
aiding drainage, and preventing, thereby, the accumulation of hurtful (because 
stagnant) fluids. 
But, as will have been gathered from the commencement of the last paragraph, 
pots of the most approved construction will lose their value if they are not set 
where light and air can freely play upon their contents. Hence the urgent neces- 
sity for refraining from keeping them in darkness or seclusion, or out of the reach 
of those great agents. By some strange inconsistency, while common shrubs are 
always put in suitable positions, not too distant from the glass, climbers are placed 
beneath a stage, or surrounded by tall plants that effectually shade their roots and 
the lower parts of their stems. It cannot be too energetically made known, that 
no degree of kindness bestowed upon the upper branches can compensate for the 
absence of what is so absolutely necessary to the roots. Unless, then, the pots 
containing Bignonias are elevated on a stage, shelf, or other erection, in a similar 
