CULTURE OF PELARGONIUMS. 
35 
itions annually. This is one of the prime secrets in the right management of 
flowers. It induces a regular development, both of stems and roots ; wholly 
prevents saturation ; provides for the due production of blossoms, by restraining all 
extraordinary exuberance ; and retains the plants subjected thereto in a sound 
vigorous, and prolific condition. In short, it is a perfect sine qua non to dis- 
tinguished, or even common success, in cultivation. 
Those specimens that do not need divesting thoroughly of the soil in which they 
are already established, should pass through the same process of a light handling 
on the exterior surface of their ball, in order to set the tender, nascent, 
progressing roots at liberty, and enable them directly to diverge into the new 
earth. The top of the ball should also be slightly stirred with a blunt wooden 
instrument, that no induration in this part may obstruct the passage through every 
inch of its composition of the water afterwards supplied. That clean dry pots, 
and abundant drainage, are indispensable, is too trite an instruction to insist on 
here ; so that we shall consider this as universally acknowledged. As a general 
direction, there should be from half an inch to three quarters (never more) of vacant 
space between the roots of a flourishing plant and the newly-provided pot. Into 
this vacuum the soil should be gradually introduced, and pressed in, neither loosely 
nor firmly, but to an extent precisely intermediate between these extremes, with 
the stick previously described ; always conducting this last near the edges of the 
pot, and so as not to damage the extremely susceptive rootlets that lie on the 
outside. By this means all those interstices which w T ould otherwise occasionally 
occur, and, from several causes, might injure the plants, will be infallibly filled. 
Still greater care must be exercised in distributing the soil about the roots of 
the sickly or diseased plants, that have been deprived of all their former compost. 
No instrument can be here used ; but the earth is to be slowly scattered over all 
the roots, and caused to settle steadily in its proper position by cautiously 
oscillating or lifting the stem, and striking the bottom of the pot flatly on the 
bench. A soft but copious sprinkling of water, to complete the compactness of the 
earthy renewal, and invigorate the freshly potted plant, is an invariable con- 
comitant of this operation, and therefore may be dismissed without further 
mention. 
We have allowed considerable prominency in our article to the foregoing point, 
because it is, in fact, the feature of most consequence ; every other circumstance 
being, to a very great extent, unavailing, unless this is rightly regarded. If asked 
how the administration of water is to be regulated, we reply principally by the 
manner in which its subject is potted, though in some degree by vicissitudes in the 
weather. So, when requested to offer our counsel as to the degree of light and 
heat needful, we are constrained to test this partly by the mode of potting ; since 
the redundancy or deficiency of fluids, which alone render a greater or less amount 
of heat and light necessary or endurable, are mostly to be traced to that source. 
And should we be desired to explain the profuse or defective display of flowers in 
