102 



UTENSILS USED IN HORTICULTURE. 



From the porosity of the material of which common earthenware 

 plant-pots are made, it is evident that when the soil within the pot is 

 moist, and the pot placed in a warm dry atmosphere, the evaporation 

 and transpiration through the sides must be considerable ; and as 

 evaporation always takes place at the expense of heat, this must tend 

 greatly to cool the mass of soil and fibrous roots within. This may be 

 prevented by glazing the exterior surface of the pot ; but as this would 

 add to the expense, and be chiefly useful in the case of plants in pots 

 kept in rooms, it is seldom incurred. In many instances it has, like- 

 wise, been found that plants have not grown so well in glazed as in 

 unglazed pots. To prevent evaporation in rooms the double pot is 

 sometimes used, or single pots are surrounded by moss, or cased in 

 woollen cloth or bark of trees : in plant-houses, the atmosphere is, or 

 ought to be, so nearly saturated with moisture by other means, as to 

 reduce the evaporation from the pots to a degree that cannot prove in- 

 jurious. The advantage which earthenware pots have over boxes is, 

 that they can be made round, by which means shifting is effected with 

 much greater ease than it can be with any rectangular utensil. 



Earthenware saucers for pots are made and sold on the some prin- 

 ciple as pots viz., in casts ; a cast of saucers for sixties or thumbs 

 costing as much as a cast for thirty-twos or sixes. Saucers are chiefly 

 used in living rooms, or in other situations where the water which 

 escapes from the hole in the bottom of the pot would prove injurious ; 

 and to prevent this water from oozing through the porous material of 

 the saucer, it is sometimes glazed on the inside. There are also sau- 

 cers, or flats, as they are called, made with raised platforms in the 

 centre, for the pots containing the plants to stand in ; in some cases, in 

 order that they may stand dry and not be liable to be entered by earth- 

 worms ; and in others, in order to surround them with water, and 

 thus insulate them from the attacks of creeping insects, such as wood- 



Fig. 67. 



Fig. 68. 



Isolating- 

 saucer. 



lice, ants, &c. Uten- 

 sils of this kind are 

 also used for support- 

 ing boards in the open 

 garden, so as to isolate 

 them, and of course 

 the pots which stand 

 on them, from wingless insects, 

 snails, worms, &c. Fig. 67 shows 

 one of these utensils, which might 

 easily be substituted for a common 

 saucer and inverted pot. An an- 

 nular saucer, fig. 68, for containing 

 water, is used either for protecting 

 plants in pots or plants in the open 

 ground ; and if lime-water or salt- 

 water is used, it will prove a very 

 effectual protection from snails, slugs, wood-lice, ants, and other creep- 

 ing wingless insects. A very ingenious substitute for this utensil has 



Annular water-saucer. 



