POTS AND WATER SAUCERS. 386 POTS AND WATER SAUCERS. 



in which the pots are standing, with water, 

 in hot weather, when the water will ascend 

 in the sides of the pots by capillary attrac- 

 tion, and keep the roots and the earth that 

 surround them moist and cool. This may 

 be better effected by standing the pot in 

 which the plant is placed within another 

 just large enough to receive it. It is better 

 to treat in this manner all plants that 

 require plenty of water, especially during 

 the summer, such as arums, when they 

 cannot be transferred to the ground in the 

 open air, oleanders, &c. Pots that have 

 been used should always be well cleansed 

 by washing before they are used again, 

 especially when they have been put by for 



ORDINARY FLOWER POT. 



some time. It is absurd to advise amateurs 

 not to use or buy old pots, for when they 

 have been well soaked for a few hours in 

 cold water, and then well washed and 

 scrubbed in hot soda water, they very 

 nearly recover their original colour, and 

 ire as serviceable as when they were pur- 

 chased new from the maker. Pots should 

 always be soaked and washed before they 

 are used for potting ; even new pots should 

 be put in water, for the porosity of the pot 

 renders it a ready absorbent of moisture, 

 and a dry pot will draw away the moisture 

 from the earth in which a newly potted 

 plant has been placed, and therefore from 

 the plant itself. Another reason for potting 

 plants in clean pots is, that the roots will 

 seek and travel along the sides of a clean 

 pot far more readily than they will, or 

 indeed can, along the sides of a pot that is 

 encrusted with dry dirt. 



Pots are generally made in what are 

 termed casts that is to say, a certain 

 quantity of clay is taken, from which one 

 pot is made, or two, four, six, eight, 

 twelve, sixteen, twenty-four, thirty-two, 

 forty-eight, sixty, or eighty ; and pots are 

 therefore known to gardeners as ones, 

 twos, fours, &c., according to the number 

 of pots made from a single cast. This 

 nomenclature is always puzzling to the 

 amateur, who never knows precisely what 

 number he wants, and so can best express 

 his wants by measuring the outside diameter 

 of the sized pot he requires and mentioning 

 the number of inches to the nurseryman, 

 who is at once able to tell what his 

 customer wants, being thoroughly con- 

 versant with numbers and their sizes. It 

 would be more convenient if the old 

 system were abandoned altogether, and if 

 numbers, from No. I onwards, were used 

 to indicate successive sizes. This may be 

 done at some potteries, for at different 

 potteries different practices prevail ; but 

 the Chiswick standard, as it is called, is 

 that which is most generally adopted for 

 distinguishing the sizes of pots, and it will 

 be convenient, as this is in most general 

 use, to give this, with the diameter and 

 depth of each size, inside measurement ', and 

 the price, singly and per dozen. 



