TRAINING OF ROSES AND GERANIUMS — "WEST KENT GARDEN POT. 229 
taste for plants, and that will eventually lead 
to every house being furnished with them 
either in pots, which will give them a longer 
existence, or in nosegays, which may be re- 
newed at no great cost as often as necessary. 
If we do not close here, people will begin to 
suspect we are fond of flowers and plants, so 
we have done for this time. — Gknny. 
TRAINING OF ROSES AND GERANIUMS. 
It is quite time something was done 
towards abolishing. the present ugly and un- 
natural system of training plants ; for, inde- 
pendently of the Geranium, which has long 
disgraced gardening, we have the Rose con- 
demned in the same way, to the system of 
interminable props; even standard Roses were 
shown last year with sticks reaching from the 
pot to the branches ; and there never was a 
more ugly and uncouth addition than these props 
made. They stuck about, all round the plant, 
like the wires of an umbrella; and thesymmetry 
and beauty of the Rose-bush or Rose-tree were 
totally eclipsed by this untidy and ungardener- 
like style. In Geraniums, it has led to the 
encouragement of plants of naturally weak 
habits — plants which would not hold thcm- 
selves up at all without support; and this is 
altogether bad; for one can hardly imngineany- 
Ihing worse than a stem of a plant that is lolling 
about the pot, instead of bearing itself properly 
as a graceful and healthy looking bush or 
shrub. We are averse to everything un- 
natural ; and surely nothing can be so unnatu- 
ral as to see a hundred or two artificial stems 
placed to hold up the real ones. To look 
along a few pots of Geraniums, as now ex- 
hibited, is like looking at a dead hedge or a 
forest of osiers ; there is nothing to be seen 
but sticks half-way up the plants ; and to be at 
all sightly, the plants are placed upon the slope 
to show the top of the plant, instead of ex- 
hibiting a shrub feathered to the edge of the 
pet. With Roses it is almost worse, for they 
are objects seen to perfection in the open 
ground, without any such monstrous additions; 
and when seen at exhibitions, distorted by SO 
many wooden legs, they arc the mere offensive 
in consequence of our familiarity with better 
things, or rather with the same subjects better 
grown. Still the' Societies encourage these 
barbarisms; and so long as they permit them 
to be exhibited lor prizes disfigured in that 
unnatural way, we fear there is but little hope 
of an alteration. Geraniums, to be seen in 
the perfection of Mower, must be shown with 
only one or two trusses; one, perhaps, better 
than two ; for in no other way can the flowers 
be produced their full size; but at any rate 
they ought to be shown without the wooden 
props, which are now so crowded into their 
pots as to be a positive detriment to the very 
best that are exhibited. 
WEST KENT GARDEN POT. 
There is scarcely an operation connected 
with the pot culture of plants, in which the 
amateur is so frequently at fault, as in that of 
re-potting his plants. He is at a loss to regu- 
late the amount of drainage supplied by crocks 
placed at the bottom, or he does not know into 
what larger sized pot his plant requires to be 
placed. These are serious obstacles, even 
supposing him to know the proper kind of 
soil, how deep to set the plant in the new pot, 
and how firm to render the fresh soil which he 
puts about its roots. There are thus some 
difficulties to be overcome in potting the ge- 
nerality of plants ; but if the plants are large, 
and have been growing in large pots, the diffi- 
culties become increased by their unwieldiness. 
Even to professed gardeners, the operation 
of potting a large plant is a matter of some 
difficulty, from the fact of its size, the bulk 
of soil about its roots, and greater force 
being required in handling and moving it than 
is quite suitable to such tender organs as the 
roots of plants. To remedy this inconve- 
nience, the West Kent garden pot has been 
designed : it is the invention of Mr. G. Fry, 
of Blackheath, and reflects considerable credit 
on his ingenuity. By means of a contrivance, 
in the shape of a block, which accompanies this 
pot, very much of the inconvenience of re- 
moving even a very large plant from one 
pot to another, is obviated ; and in the con- 
struction of the pot itself, some of the other 
difficulties pointed out are also obviated. 
The pot itself consists of two parts : — The 
shell, which consists of what forms the side of 
the pot, and with a nar- 
row ledge at bottom, and 
which is, in fact, a hollow 
inverted cone, provided 
with a narrow ledge pro- 
jecting inwards, at its 
smallest end. This part 
differs from the ordinary 
garden pots, in having the hole at the bottom, 
nearly the whole diameter of the pot at that 
end. The drain-cup, which is the other part; 
fits — not too nicely — into the bottom of the 
shell, and rests upon the narrow 
ledge before mentioned. The 
form of this drain-cup is sug- 
gested by its name ; it is, in fact, a shallow 
pan, provided with a small hole for the passage 
of water, which is so placed as to come directly 
over the larger hole. When in use, this pan is 
filled with the broken crocks, pieces of char- 
coal, or whatever other material is used for 
drainage, and thus in itself becomes a guide 
