'PLANTING AND Til AN S PLAN TING. 
103 
Optima. Rich, deep reddish scarlet, fine shape, vigorous 
habit, and an abundant bloomer. 
Phoenicia alba . The largest and best of the whites. 
Speciocissima. Scarlet, richly spotted on the upper petals, 
free to grow and flower. 
Triumphans . Large, deep rose, with a tinge of lilac, spotted 
thickly with rich crimson on the upper portion of the flower; a 
first-rate variety. Editoe. 
PLANTING AND TRANSPLANTING. 
Filling the borders and beds of the flower-garden at this season, 
occasions a great deal of the work mentioned in the heading of 
this paper: the important effect of the operation on the future 
progress of such plants as are subject to it, and the little t hat 
some who undertake it think of the manner in which it should 
be done, induces me to notice it. Theory and good practice are 
so closely interwoven, that I may be excused if I first point to 
the principles which should regulate the manner of its per¬ 
formance. That the roots of plants are highly important organs, 
inasmuch as through them the vegetable fabric receives its chief 
supply of food, will be generally admitted; it is also pretty well 
known that it is the extreme points of the roots, or the spongioles 
as they are called which possess the greatest power of absorption. 
acting as so many mouths wherein the food is taken and after¬ 
wards conveyed to the stem and branches; that water enters 
largely into the composition of the food of plants, or at least that 
the nutriment taken up by the roots is chiefly in an aqueous 
form must also be allowed; and that a porous body is more 
easily percolated by both air and water than a solid or compact 
one, the evidence of everyone’s senses will make known to them. 
Here then is the basis of the principles which should prevail in 
the removal of every plant, and yet it may be safely asserted that 
every time the dibble is employed in transplanting, every one of 
these rules is broken, and there is a complete departure from 
what a knowledge of vegetable physiology tells us should be 
observed. Let us take a pan full of annuals that are to be trails- 
