POTHOS 



POTS 



1423 



A. £ivs. green, not banded or mottled. 



celatocatilis, N. E. Brown. Rapid-growing climber, 

 with stems flat on the under side and Ij'ing close to its 

 support: Ivs. distichous and overlapping, broad-elliptic, 

 somewhat oblique, sessile, strongly many-veined, dark 

 velvety green. Borneo. F.S. 23:2419, 2420. l.H. 30:49(). 

 — First described in 1880 in England. A very odd 

 plant. 



nitens, Bull. Lvs. obliquely ovate-acute, cordate at 

 base, shining purplish green. Malaya. 



AA. Lvs. mottled or banded. 



atireus, Linden. Fig. 1936. Strong evergreen climber 

 with cordate-ovate-acute lvs., which are variously 

 blotched and mottled with yellowish white, the body 

 color being bright green. Solomon Isl. I.H. 27:381. 

 S.H. 1:334. — The generic position of this plant — which 

 is one of the commonest ones in cult. — is in doubt. It 

 probably belongs to Rhaphidophora, possibly to Scindap- 

 sus. In a dark place the handsome markings of the 

 leaves tend to disappear. Branches will grow in water 

 for a time. Prop, by cuttings or layers. 



arg6nteus, Bull. Lvs. obliquely ovate-acuminate, sil- 

 very gray, with a deep green margin and a deep green 

 band along the midrib. Borneo. L_ g;_ g_ 



POTHUAVA. See ^chmea. 



POT MARIGOLD. See Calendula. 



POTS. Before beginning an historical sketcn of the 

 manufacture of flower pots in America the writer may 

 perhaps be pardoned for stating that the firm which he 

 represents is one of the thirty-one firms eligible to the 

 Century Club, which consists of firms that have had an 

 uninterrupted ancestral record of one hundred years or 

 more in the same business. Other memberships in the 

 Century Club of interest to horticulturists are those of 

 J. M. Thorburn & Co., of New York, and D. Landreth 

 & Co., of Philadelphia. The business of making flower 

 pots has been in the direct line of the writer's family 

 for four generations without a break, and this indicates 

 the age of the business in this country. 



The first entry in our oldest account book reads as 

 follows: Weston, April 19, 1775, Lemuel Jones, to Ware, 

 debtor: 0£ 2s. 8d. From 1788 to 1810, a period of 21 

 years, we have a continuous account. The charges dur- 

 ing that entire term cover about as many pages as we 

 now often use in a day ; and the amount in dollars and 

 cents does not compare with single sales of the year 

 1900. Through all the years up to 1807 the term "flower 

 pots " does not once appear, and the writer very much 

 regrets that the first sale of flower pots and the name 

 of the purchaser cannot be found. 



The readers of thlL article who can remember the year 

 1861 will recall the depressed condition of business after 

 war was actually declared. The members of the Hews 

 firm felt sure that there would be no demand for flower 

 pots, they being more of a luxury than a necessity, and 

 that the factory must close. At that time the writer 

 succeeded in getting permission to make his first ven- 

 ture as salesman "on the road." Going first to C. M. 

 Hovey, he secured what was a good order for those 

 times, some 10,000 or more pots for the spring trade of 

 1862. Not once after that, during the Civil War, was 

 the firm able, during the spring and fall rush, to fill all 

 their orders for flower pots. It is not that these orders 

 were remarkably large or numerous, but they were be- 

 yond the capacity of the firm. 



The writer's own records go back to 1866. At that 

 time prices were a third or a half higher than they are 

 to-day, which is more than the writer would be willing 

 to admit of the relative excellence of the goods. W^e 

 first got fairly under way with machinery for making 

 small flower pots in 1869. The father of the under- 

 signed, always disposed to be a little cautious, thought 

 that we should overstock the country and ruin the 

 prices. We did in that year what we thought was a 

 wonderful business in flower pots. We exceeded it by 

 a third in the month of October, 1894. 



Until about 1864 or 1865 common flower pots through- 

 out the world had always been made by hand on the 



potter's wheel. There had been, indeed, many difi'erent 

 forms of this wheel, but it had always been propelled by 

 hand or foot power. When, in the early fifties, a wheel 

 was made to be propelled by the foot, with two sizes of 

 pulleys and a balance wheel whereby the speed of the 



1936. Pothos aureus of the horticulturists (X %).' 



wheel was increased in the proportion of three to one, 

 it was thought that perfection had been reached. Much 

 time, though very little money, had been spent previous 

 to the fifties in attempts to make a pot machine. It was 

 left to William Linton, of Baltimore, an experienced 

 practical potter, to perfect and patent the first machine. 

 From him we purchased two machines and the exclusive 

 right to use them in Massachusetts. In a short time we 

 were able to make great improvements on his patent. 

 America was far ahead of Europe in this kind of 

 machinery, as also in improved machinery in general. 

 It is probably safe to say that from time immemorial 

 down to about the year 1863, fiower pots had always 

 been made in one general way— by hand, on a potter's 

 wheel. 



The machine made only small pots, up to about 5 inches 

 in diameter; and while it had previously taken an ex- 

 perienced man to make his thousand 3-inch pots in 10 

 hours, a smart boy without any previous experience 

 whatever could make three thousand on the machine in 

 the same time. 



When the standard pot was adopted, about 10 years 

 ago, the hand process was practically abandoned in 

 the principal potteries in favor of what is technically 

 called the jigger. This is a revolving disk propelled by 

 machinery. These disks, or jigger-heads, are made of 

 different sizes and fitted with various rings. Plaster 

 molds are made in very large numbers for each size of 

 pots, and the larger standard pots (6-12-inch) are all 

 made at the present time in these molds. W^ith us, 

 pots from 12-24 in. in diam. are made as of yore by 

 hand on the wheel. 



The making of the pot is not its only cost: previous 

 to that comes the preparation of the clay. The hundred 

 years from 1765 to 1865 saw no improvement in the pro- 

 cess of preparing it for use. It was ground in a wooden 

 tank or tub, propelled by an ox. The various other 

 processes remained as crude in 1865 as they had been 

 the century previous: the drying, firing, and all con- 

 nected with the manufacture. The capacity of our 

 flower pot drying-rooms of to-day far exceeds the entire 

 product of any one year prior to 1865. At that time the 

 custom of using wood for drying and firing pots still 

 continued. It i-equired three cords of white pine and 

 from thirtv to forty hours' labor to thoroughly fire a 



90 



