OPERATIONS FOR MARCH. 
47 
impossible to be realised ; but we shall show how, within certain bounds, it can 
be readily carried into execution. The prime condition on which it depends is 
the withholding all superfluous supplies of water, even to keeping the plant in a 
state ever bordering on actual want. If we have unequivocally and repeatedly 
pressed the necessity of withholding fluids in dull and wintry weather, because of 
the well-known inefficiency of solar light and heat to force them through the 
system, and furnish for them sufficient and appropriate outlets, we must here 
resume the same recommendations for very dissimilar reasons. 
Although light and heat are not yet naturally provided to the requisite extent, 
there is enough of these to controvert any argument for maintaining a scarcity of 
water, which might be built on such grounds. It is the injurious check to 
protected plants which, according to the common series of seasons, will assuredly 
succeed, and the serious damage that may result to those freely exposed, on which 
alone we base our opinion, when we allege that liquids, unsparingly or too lavishly 
used this month, are great agents for evil. To express our whole meaning in one 
short sentence, we deem it much safer to let a plant look somewhat sickly for 
lack of liquid nutriment during the opening spring quarter, than to encourage its 
growth by a contrary course, and subject this to future incurable injury. Plants 
in houses or frames are the express objects of these remarks ; but the benefits of 
the system may be communicated to all the smaller sorts of unsheltered border 
ornaments, by placing a layer of any substance that is impervious to rain over the 
soil that contains their roots. 
Many exotics will require re-potting this month, and we cannot do better than 
point to the directions for shifting Pelargonia in a former page of this Number, as 
embodying most of the principles by which the operation should be universally 
regulated. Orchidacese, unlike the members of every other tribe, thrive best in 
a pot or other receptacle, large enough to hold the whole of the roots likely to be 
added in the ensuing year ; only, where this plan is followed, more than usual 
attention must be devoted to the prudent application of water, otherwise it would 
prove prejudicial instead of congenial. 
If the hints thrown out last month on the time of digging shrubbery borders 
have had the desired influence, these may now be turned over without delay. It 
should be stated, that we would not delay operating on those which may 
be meliorated by lying open to the air, or such as are of a very clayey com- 
position. These are most properly dug in November. But all that have a 
light, mellow soil, can, with the greatest propriety, be reserved till March. If 
manure appears to be needed, it becomes a question of high interest whether the 
bone-dust, now so generally used in the processes of agriculture, is not, in every 
point, best adapted for floricultural purposes. In its employment, all the incon- 
venience and dirt that attend the harrowing, applying, and effectual burying of 
decayed dung, would be spared, and the ground in which it was mixed would be 
sensibly pulverized as well as drained by its dry non-adhesive qualities. 
