FLORICULTURAL CECONOMICS. 
259 
to its control. These are planting, pruning, manuring, rolling, turning, or 
gravelling walks, sowing seeds, and collecting the same, destroying weeds, and a 
variety of others, which will occur to the mind of any reflecting cultivator. Not 
that we would affirm of any of these that they cannot be executed unless the 
weather be favourable ; but we would merely say that none of them can be satis- 
factorily and perfectly accomplished without regard being had to the condition both 
of the ground and the atmosphere. 
As to planting, it is notorious that a period of dull, and cloudy, and rather 
damp weather, is preferable for it. And thus it is that the month of November, 
by being the dullest part of the year, is aptly regarded as the best month for the 
planter. We need hardly add that the philosophy of this selection consists in the 
opportunity a moist sunless season affords the newly-removed plants for recovering 
their power of absorbing moisture from the earth in sufficient proportion to the 
exhalations from their branches or leaves ; and also in the ease with which the 
exposed roots can be kept from drying during the progress of the transplantation. 
More importance attaches to this last fact than is usually conceded to it. 
Pruning, again, is most safely carried on at those seasons in which the juices of 
plants are comparatively stagnant, and on such days as happen to be partially 
hazy or clouded, and free from frost. November is therefore the best month for 
this process, likewise, in the majority of cases. Dull days are calculated to 
promote the healing of the wounds, without that exhausting flow of sap which 
would attend a fervid sunshine. And in frosty weather the juices left exposed in 
the wounded part of a shoot become coagulated, and the destruction of the point 
of the branch is the consequence. 
That manure is fittest applied in dry frosty weather to save the mutilation of 
roads, walks, or ground over which it is taken, will be clearly apparent. But 
that it is most prudent and philosophical to put it on in the end of autumn, will 
not be so obvious ; general practice being, in this instance, regulated more by con- 
venience than by cogency of rational inference. The reasons which weigh in 
favour of the common mode of proceeding are, that, by lying in the ground all 
the winter, manure gets more blended and incorporated with its substance than it 
could do in summer, because of the preponderance of fluid, (which is the medium 
of assimilation), at the former period, and because, moreover, the peculiar gases 
of the manure will evaporate less through the winter. 
Rolling must palpably be done after rain has moistened the walks or the lawn 
sufficiently to receive an impression, and while they are not too wet to have their 
surface injured by being trampled. Walks must plainly, too, be turned or 
gravelled in showery weather, for this is the time at which alone they can be made 
to set and bind again firmly and smoothly. The month of April is, for this reason, 
the most appropriate part of the year ; and it becomes additionally suitable from 
the fact that spring time is just opening, and worms have nearly ceased to disturb 
the surface, and peculiar neatness and freshness are demanded. 
