95 
OPERATIONS FOR MAY. 
May is perhaps the gayest, because the most purely vernal, month of the year. 
It is the season of both vegetable and animal excitement ; the latter being probably 
in some degree owing to the agreeable influence attending a prospect of flourishing 
vegetation. The grand transition from dormancy to vigour, from seeming barren- 
ness to lovely verdure, ministers to our senses a delight of the highest order ; and 
fills us with a mild, harmless kind of enjoyment, richly fraught with both corporeal 
and mental invigoration. 
May is not, however, to be spent in luxurious pleasure by the cultivator, not- 
withstanding its inviting aspect. If he would have his borders well stocked with 
summer ornaments, this is the time at which they must be filled. The fashionable 
and very praiseworthy method of employing tender exotics to adorn the flower-beds 
in the warmer months, enjoins a prompt attention to their transplantation at this 
period. Plots planted with early flowering Tulips, Erythroniums, Narcissuses, 
and all the showy objects that blossom in the first part of the season, are now to 
be divested of their previous occupants, and prepared for a new race. In such 
cases it is well to leave the soil exposed for a week, turning it several times during 
the interval, and reoccupying it at the expiration of that term. It is thus rendered 
light and loose, and the roots of the plants transferred to it can immediately spread 
themselves in any direction ; while weeds are destroyed, and there is an opportunity 
afforded for killing all insects that may have selected it for their residence. 
In transplanting Verbenas and other half-hardy plants, the earth of the beds 
should never be of too nutritive a nature. The object being to induce a liberal 
production of blossoms, their tendency to grow too luxuriantly when unrestrained 
at the roots must not be forgotten, and either sand or sandy heath-mould ought to 
be mixed with the soil of which the plots are composed. To effect the same purpose, 
all the stronger shoots should be carefully decapitated at the time of planting, and 
once or twice afterwards, as the necessity may appear to exist. Few think of 
performing this simple operation, and yet none can be of greater value in the 
culture of border plants of the class under notice ; not only as it keeps them dwarf, 
and forms the group into a denser mass, but for the incalculable multiplication of 
flowers it occasions. 
The proper disposition of the roots of plants is a matter likewise too generally 
overlooked in their transplantation. After releasing them from the pot, it is 
advisable to shake off all the outer soil, so as to place the growing roots directly in 
a different and congenial medium, gathering the earth over them with as much 
caution as if transferring them to another pot. Such a minute direction may seem 
frivolous ; but if this point is not scrupulously observed, the blossoming season may 
