230 
CONIFERS AND TAXADS. 
caused numbers to damp off ; like results are attendant upon similar practices still ; 
and there are other evils flowing from the same source, whose ill effects might 
be enlarged upon, were it not for the fact that as far as culturists generally are 
concerned, it is a matter of little importance, they having nothing to do with plants 
at this stage of their existence ; the nurseryman is the party whose interests are 
affected by the prevalence of such mischief ; and besides, evils of this kind suggest 
both their prevention and cure : the latter is accomplished, where it may have been 
necessary to employ warmth to start the seeds, — and gentle heat can be advanta- 
geously resorted to, if it is judiciously applied, though upon the whole its aid is best 
dispensed with, — by hardening the young plants off as gradually and quickly as 
possible ; and the former by simply allowing seeds time to vegetate without any 
stimulating process being practised. What was formerly, and is now, stated 
respecting the rearing of Pinuses from seed is equally applicable to similarly 
producing plants of each species in the order. 
The preceding observations are a suitable introduction to those required on an- 
other point in managing Conifers, &c, generally, but more particularly the larger 
growing kinds. Plants, we have had occasion to notice already, in a universal view 
of the case, are in the hands of Nurserymen through the younger stages of their 
growth ; the period they remain there is not regulated by any fixed rules ; longer 
time is required to produce saleable plants of some species than of others : all the 
while, however, they do continue, owing to circumstances most will understand the 
nature of, they unavoidably can only be allowed just sufficient root-room to enable 
them to make bare progress. This necessarily is the case with all nursery plants 
kept in pots, and the effect of such a course of treatment upon each individual is 
productive of and recognisable by the same features. The ill consequences it is the 
forerunner of, unless counteractive measures be taken, are of no small magnitude, 
and would be greater, did not the same agency which tends to their production also 
originate a state of things whose advantages greatly qualify the measures by which 
they are brought about. We may briefly glance at what these are : in the case of 
plants similar to those of which we write, (Pinuses, &c.,) which are tender or ima- 
gined to be so, no better method could be taken to give their organisation a solidity, 
and their character a hardiness, the most fitted to test their capability of withstand- 
ing cold, than the process we spoke of as being carried on by the practice prevailing 
in nurseries. Among flowering plants, too, it is the agent that induces a fructiferous 
disposition, causing perhaps many things to flower at an age and size that renders 
them doubly interesting, and which would not otherwise bloom for years. To return 
to the w^ay in which Conifers, &c. are injuriously affected by being kept long in 
small pots, we proceed to remark, it arises from the majority of the Order having 
long, string-like roots, that have but a very slight disposition to branch and throw 
out rootlets and fibres, and that, consequently, when confined in a small compartment, 
as a small pot, in elongating creep round and round its inside, forming a series of 
complicated coils, which stretch round the ball of earth ; these joints extract 
