365 
COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, March 15, 1850. 
COMMON PRACTICES. 
(Continued from page 350.) 
Potting, and Repotting. —The first, at this season, 
has reference, chiefly, to seedlings and cuttings sufficiently 
rooted to require a pot for themselves. The second 
applies to plants where ihe pots are already filled with 
roots, and require more room for extra growth. The 
mode of doing all these things, the necessity of clean pots 
and good drainage, have been often alluded to. Disappoint¬ 
ments frequently ensue, because we either do not think 
of it, or forget that our object in these cases is to get the 
plant to grow quickly, and with as little check as possible. 
Every potting and repotting will, so far, give a check ; 
because the action of part of the roots is, at least, tem¬ 
porarily arrested. The check should be counterbalanced, 
not encouraged. A clergyman’s wife informed me, that 
none knew more about gardening than her worthy hus¬ 
band, and I believe she stated nothing but the truth. 
His attention, however, was concentrated upon more im¬ 
portant objects ; and then, sometimes, he would do things 
among his plants that he could hardly believe were done 
by his own hands. How many of us act without thought 
or consideration, and have nothing of the clergyman’s 
excuse! Carelessness, and want of thought, are often 
more injurious than downright ignorance. There is a man 
potting Cinerarias ; you can see their leaves flagging before 
potting, as they stand on the potting-bench. You find, 
by your fingers, and turning a ball out, that the soil is 
dry and parched ; but in they go as they are. Then, 
when for weeks after, they flag every sunny day, and get 
fine green flies on them in flocks, and will not hold up their 
heads, though the new soil, in the new pots, is kept soaked. 
The potter would, very likely, take it as an insult, if you 
were to hint that he might have prevented these mis¬ 
fortunes, if he had given his plants a good soaking a 
number of hours before potting. Before the roots get 
into the moist new soil, most likely the plants w r ould lose 
all the best of their leaves; as it would be long, long 
indeed, before any more watering would enter the dried- 
up old ball, so long as it could get along and away through 
the fresh loose soil. 
Again. Here are half-a-dozen plants brought from a 
temperature of above 60°; placed in a potting-shed at 40°; 
allowed to stand there until all have their turn of repotting 
in soil about 40°; and then are carried back to their old 
place, after the operator has gone to, and returned from, 
dinner; and then, very probably, water is given, to make all 
right, at a temperature of 45°; then there is such wonder¬ 
ing when insects and yellow leaves are more plentiful than 
desirable. The repotting alone « ould be a check ; warm, 
well-aired soil; a warm place to perform the operation in, 
or keeping the plant as short a time as possible in a cooler 
place ; using water even warmer than the temperature of 
the house ; sprinkling the leaves to prevent evaporation ; 1 
and keeping the house closer to encourage fresh rooting, 
would minimise the effects of the check of repotting ; and 
seem so apparent, that the surprise is, that the very 
opposite is so frequently adopted. 
Once more. A person gets a basket of bedding plants in 
March, nicely-rootedVerbenas, scarlet Pelargoniums, &c.; 
and, to save expense, the earth has been pretty well shaken 
from the roots, and these, laid in moss, are all sent, at little 
expense, in a small basket. He knows that these stood 
in small pots,—and had plenty of air and little water,— 
in the front of a cool greenhouse. He pots, and places, j 
his plants in a similar position. The plants have roots, and 
must succeed as well with him as in the place they came 
from. He cannot think what can be the reason why the : 
Verbenas lose their leaves, and the Geranium foliage gets 
yellow and woe-begone, and that even the life-nourishing 
air, when given in plenty, makes them worse and worse. 
He has a shallow pit, where a bottom heat of 60°, or so, 
could be commanded from old leaves, &c., and could be 
kept moist and close, and even shaded at pleasure. If the 
plants had not been too long packed, were potted in nice 
light soil, were plunged, as to their pots, not over watered, 
but sprinkled from the syringe two or three times in a sunny 
day, were slightly shaded when very bright sun, and the 
frames kept nearly close for a fortnight; and then air 
admitted, little at first, and then more by degrees, hardly 
a leaf need have been lost. By that time the pots would 
have been so filled with fresh roots, that the plants would 
not disagree with any place, however exposed, if they 
were only secure from frost. I should not, however, be 
surprised, if, after digesting all this, some friend, after 
placing his new-potted plants in such a pit, were to pull 
off the lights in a sunny day, in order that the plants 
might have all they could get of a good thing. It wouid 
be well to recollect, that every fresh-potted plant, even 
when it has a ball,—and more especially if without a ball, 
—and in full growth, has received a check, which, for a 
time, prevents the roots absorbing as freely as the leaves 
and stems perspire. A little shade in bright sunshine, and 
a close, moist atmosphere, will lessen perspiration until 
the roots have regained the equilibrium. When that is 
the case, air and light must be given; or there would be 
spongy, instead of stubby, fruitful growth. R. Pish. 
THE SCIENCE OE GARDENING. 
(Continued from page 351.) 
According to the usual acceptation of the term, the roots of 
plants do not emit excrements ; yet it is quite certain, that in 
common with all the other parts of a plant, they emit .mutters 
differing in their amount and composition, ihe earth in contact 
with the tubers of a Potato fully ripe contains mucilage, and has 
the peculiar odour of the root; that in contact with tiie roots of 
Peas is also mucilaginous, and smells very strongly of that vege¬ 
table; and the freshly up-turned soil where Cabbages have been 
grow'ng always smells offensively. 
In addition to this, every gardener knows that the vigour and 
luxuriance of a crop are influenced remarkably by that which 
immediately pre-occupied the ground on which it is growing; 
and this does not arise entirely from the previous crop having 
robbed the soil of constituents required by its successor, but from 
that crop having left something otfensive. Thus, the Cabbage- 
worts will not grow healthily upon soil where the immediatefy- 
previous crop was of the same tribe; but if the ground be pared 
and burnt, they will grow luxuriantly. And the same occurs to 
ground exhausted by Strawberries . if it be burnt and manured, 
Strawberries will grow as vigorously as upon fresh ground ; but 
they will not do so if manure only be applied. It has also been 
observed that the roots of plants placed in water give out them 
characteristic flavour to the liquid; but on this, as evidence 
that they emit excrements, no great reliance can be placed, for 
some of the roots, during removal from the soil, must be wounded. 
The fact that the roots of plants do give out peculiar and 
varying matters to the soil which sustains them, aids to explain 
why one rotation of crops is superior to another, as well as why 
fallowing is beneficial. 
Eallowing gets rid, by decomposition, of any otfensive ex- 
crementitious matters, as well as accumulates that which is 
desirable to plants ; and one crop succeeds better after some pre¬ 
decessors than others, because their exuviae are more salutary. 
These facts are all explicable by the supposition that roots 
emit into the soil various excrementitious substances. Let us 
next inquire whether they do so has been substantiated by direct 
experiment. 
M. A. P. De Candolle, in his “Vegetable Organography,” says 
that “these excretions of roots have been particularly seen by 
Bruemansbut we are not acquainted with his researches. 
MM. Bacquerel and Macaire found when Barley and other grain 
were made to vegetate in pure chalk, acetate of lime was formed 
in it, evidently by acetic acid (vinegar) being emitted by the young 
roots, and this combining with the lime of the chalk.— (Ann, de 
Chimie et de Pliys. iv.). 
M. Braconnot washed the soil in which the Poppy (Papaver 
somniferum) had grown during ten years successively, and ob¬ 
tained from it a considerable quantity of acetate of lime.— 
(Ibid, lxxii.) 
Mr. Lymburn says, “ On lifting up a bed of two-year seedling 
