if arch 2), 1884. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
231 
frequent supplies of water during the whole of last year has been to 
decompose the soil and make it unfit for the plants to remain in it a 
second year. Should it be decided to repot them it will be found a 
good plan to turn the plants out of the pots and immerse the ball in a 
tub of water, the effect of which is to loosen the soil, which, by rubbing 
it gently with the hands, is readily removed from the thread-like 
roots. Unless this is done it will be difficult to shake the plants out 
of the old soil without breaking off a large number of roots, thereby 
running the risk of weakening the plants. Although many cultivators 
prefer to leave the old leaves and pitchers on the plants until the new 
growth is made, it is a good practice to cut away all shabby leaves, 
leaving one or two of the best to each crown. 
For compost peat in small pieces, with a portion of the small 
matter shaken out, sphagnum moss, and crock dust form a mixture 
such as Sarracenias delight to root in. Either pots or pans may be 
used, half filling them with drainage. As the Sarracenias are surface¬ 
rooting plants it is necessary that the pots or pans in which they are 
to grow should be sufficiently large to afford room for the roots to 
ramify freely near the surface of the soil. The crowns should be 
planted just level with the surface, and the mixture pressed in firmly. 
Apply water liberally when the potting is completed. A position near 
the glass, in a house with an aspect which will catch the sunlight all 
day, and where the temperature can be kept above 50° during cold 
spring nights, are the requirements of Sarracenias during their growing 
season. It will be unnecessary to ventilate unless the temperature of 
the house rises above 80° with sun heat; for although these plants do 
not like fire heat, the heat of the sun is necessary to their making large 
well-coloured pitchers. 
The syringe should be used twice or thrice daily, and a good 
saturation with tepid water at the roots should be given every morning, 
Sarracenias being almost aquatic in their habits, and therefore 
requiring frequent waterings at the roots. Never mind about the 
plants being wet, the water is required all the same. As the pitchers 
ripen a weak solution of cow dung is useful in assisting their develop¬ 
ment and colouring. When growth is completed more air may be 
given. Cold draughts, however, must be carefully avoided, or the 
pitchers will soon suffer. Green fly attacks these plants, especially 
during the infancy of the pitchers ; and as much harm is done by 
even very few of these pests, it is a good plan to fumigate the plants 
with tobacco smoke about every fortnight. Darlingtonias may be 
successfully treated as advised for the Sarracenias.—W. W. 
POSTAL BOXES. 
The magnitude of the trade in plants now conducted through the 
parcel post, and the commendable custom that has increased so rapidly of 
late, has excited the ingenuity of manufacturers in producing boxes of 
various sizes for the purpose in question. Samples of some of these boxes 
are before us. The first received was the “ unique ” folding box of Mr. 
Thomas P. Bethell of Liverpool. This is made of cardboard, and can be 
flattened out and prepared in a moment in the form of a box rigid and 
Fig. 50. 
secure. Ihi3 is the lightest of all, but the larger sizes especially are not 
sufficiently strong for rough usage. 
The Patent Package Company, Fenchurch Street, London, sent us a 
sample of a wooden box, strong, yet not 
heavy, simple and effectual for the purpose 
for which it is made. 
The Collapsible Packing-case Company, 
Weybridge, manufacture their boxes of tin 
on the ground that they thus possess strength, 
lightness, portability, security, and economy, 
and the example before us shows that their 
claim 'is well founded. The boxes'when open 
(fig. 50) can be packed away like so many sheets of tin, while when closed 
(fig. 51) they form fitting receptacles for plants and flowers. 
ABUTILONS IN SMALL POTS. 
Much can be done with the Abutilon with but very little trouble. We 
have plants raised from seed sown last spring, which have made remark¬ 
able growth in 5-inch pots, being now fully 3 feet in height, some furnished 
to within 9 inches of the pot and about 18 inches through. These plants 
have been in flower since the first week in November, and are now showing 
scores of flowers, in some instances two on a stalk. 
They have been grown in a temperature of about 55° by day and 50° 
at night, allowing more with sun heat, which we have had but very little of 
since November; the soil used was good mellow loam. They have also 
received good supplies of Clay’s fertiliser, in which they evidently 
delight. The plants have been kept in saucers since they became root- 
bound, as, if the roots are allowed to become dry, the plants will be sure 
to lose their foliage and flower buds also. The seed was obtained from 
Messrs. Cannell of Swanley, and some of the seedlings are very good 
indeed, especially a pale primrose, which is very prolific. 
I purpose giving the plants a good shift and growing them out¬ 
side during the summer months, not allowing them to flower till 
the autumn, when I expect them to be useful for the winter months.— 
J. P., Summer hill. 
PLANTS AND FLOWERS OF THE PAST AND PRESENT. 
Looking over an old copy of the “ Scottish Gardener ” to-day I was 
much struck with the difference of plants then cultivated compared with 
those which now adorn our hothouses. This difference was most vividly 
brought to my mind on examining the prize list of the Caledonian Horti¬ 
cultural Society’s Show for the year 1857. Among the plants comprised in 
the winning collections of stove and greenhouse plants were the following:— 
Leschenaultia formosa, Pimelea spectabilis, Pultensea stricta, Calceolaria 
violacea, Podolobium triangulare, Mahernia incisa, Tetratheca verticillata, 
and many others which it is needless to enumerate. Amongst Cape Heaths 
I also noticed a good many strange names. The same may also be said 
about Pansies, Dahlias, and several other florists’ flowers. In fact, among 
the twelve varieties which composed the first-prize lot of Pansies I did not 
recognise one familiar Dame. I do not wonder so much at the changes 
which have taken place amongst florists’ flowers, but what has become of 
the good old hardwooded occupants of the stove or greenhouse, the 
successful cultivation of which was, I understand, the gauge by which 
a gardener’s abilities were measured? Has the advance of horticulture 
and floriculture given birth to better and more useful varieties, so that the 
older sorts have had to yield to the rule of survival of the fittest, or have 
they become the victims of popular taste, by which the more showy and 
easier cultivated softwooded plants have gained the day ? I know that 
occasionally these old favourites are to be met with, but only in some 
secluded spot where such things are carefully looked after and treasured as 
relics of the good old days. Doubtless there are many readers of the 
Journal who can look back to the days when such plants as those I have 
named were popular everywhere, and who have watched, perhaps sadly, 
the gradual encroachment of the modern usurpers, if I may use the term. 
Mayhap some of them will be able to’toll us if, after all the progress that 
has been made in gardening, any improvement has been made in this 
branch of it.— Caledonian. 
SPORTS PHYSIOLOGICALLY CONSIDERED. 
The following paper was read by Mr. J. W. Talbot last year before the 
Massachusetts Horticultural Society, and is published in the last part of 
their Transactions. 
“ To call a natural phenomenon a sport, is to admit our ignorance of the 
natural laws by which it was produced. To be satisfied with that term 
evinces a willingness to remain ignorant. But such phenomena are very 
common. When, for instance, a branch upon the stock of a Rose, or any 
other shrub or plant, produces a blossom essentially different from the 
others, it is called a sport. When, in grafting, the result is different from 
what we had reason to expect, we call it sporting. When the green-leafed 
Laburnum was budded with the golden, and the shoots below the bud, and 
even those from the roots were variegated, the new variety thus obtained 
was called a sport. So, when the yellow-striped Jessamine was grafted on 
the white, and the smaller-leafed Abutilon was grafted on the larger-leafed, 
the two new varieties thus obtained were called sports. When, in Amherst, 
N.H., a large Baldwin tree, originally grafted near the ground on a Russet 
stock, threw out a shoot 20 feet above the graft, bearing Apples that seemed 
to be a cross between the Baldwin and Russet, it was called Whiting’s Sport, 
after the owner. Tradition tells us that more than a century ago buds of 
the Golden Sweet and Rhode Island Greening, being split and their halves 
united, produced the well-known Apple, one side of which is sweet and the 
other sour. This Apple has always been called a sport. These are a few of 
a large class of phenomena which, appearing to be contrary to natural laws, 
have been called sports. The term, however, is an unfortunate one. Nature 
never sports. All her laws are immutable. It is only when we cannot com¬ 
prehend that she appears to sport, . . 
“ Cases like the above, connected with grafting, cross-fertilising, or 
hybridising, will never be perfectly understood until men better understand 
the laws of vegetable anatomy and physiology. The advance made in this 
direction within a few years has already explained many of the mysteries of 
former times ; and is it not reasonable to expect that scientific men, availing 
themselves of past discoveries, with the improved apparatus and opportunities 
of the present, will soon be able to trace what are now called sports to 
natural causes ? But let us bear in mind that the practical man, who care¬ 
fully observes and records natural phenomena, may be the scientific man, 
whatever he may be called. 
“ The better to learn the origin and understand the nature ot sports i 
wish to call your attention to a few familiar but well-established physio¬ 
logical facts and truths. It is not long since the most absurd and 
contradictory views prevailed in regard to the circulation of the sap. I hat 
most trees and plants derive a large part of their nourishment from the soil 
will not be questioned. Nearly all writers of note now admit that the 
crude sap ascends from the roots,through the sap wood, to the uppet side of 
the leaves, where it is elaborated by coming in contact with the air, exhaling 
the superfluous water and oxygen, and inhaling carbonic acid. It then 
passes into the veins on the under side of the leaves, to be conducted into 
the chlorophyl vessels in the bark, where it is digested and assimilated on its 
way into the cambium, where it forms the protoplasm or life principle which 
