12 
WATER AND WATERING. 
WATER AND WATERING. 
The important effects producible from this powerful agent in 
horticulture, and the destructive consequences traceable to its 
mismanagement, invest it with an interest that may well excuse 
an often repeated notice. The office of water in the economy of 
vegetation is mainly the preparation of such solid matters as are 
taken into and ultimately form part of the plant, by a process of 
maceration, which reduces them to a form easily absorbed by the 
spongioles. Formerly an idea was entertained that water of 
itself was the principal food of plants ; but every authentic 
attempt to make them exist on the pure fluid proving abortive, 
we are led to the conclusion that its functions are more correctly 
those just described; it is certain that in no other way can the 
presence of earthy matters at the extremity of the most distant 
and slender branch be accounted for, and they are universally 
present through the whole fabric of the most noble denizen of the 
forest as well as in the frame of the humblest weed, forming the 
basis of the more solid parts, unless we admit the action of water 
in presenting them to the roots for absorption, and by them dis¬ 
charged to the opposite extremities while in a state of solution. 
If, then, vegetation depends to so great an extent on the presence 
of this element, and every day’s practice fully proves its power, 
it becomes a subject of the first consequence to know the kind of 
water most proper to apply, and the most judicious mode of 
application. 
Water, in a natural condition, it is well known, differs to a 
considerable degree in quality, according to the sources whence 
it is obtained; for horticultural purposes it may be considered of 
two kinds—spring water, or that derived from wells, ponds, and 
streams, and rain water. The latter is to be preferred, because 
of being free from hurtful impurities. Spring water, in its pas¬ 
sage through the several strata comprising the geological forma¬ 
tion of the locality it is derived from, in most cases becomes more 
or less impregnated with their several characters, assuming, where 
the nature of the soil favours such a development, variations of 
the several forms known as carbonated, sulphureous, and chaly¬ 
beate waters. The last is most common, and most to be feared 
