14 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



MEETING FOR LECTURE AND DISCUSSION. 



Saturday, Jamiary 19, 1895. 



A Meeting for Lecture and Discussion was holden at elevert 

 o'clock, the President, Nathaniel T. Kidder, in the chair. 



The following paper was read by the author : 



Flower Pots and Their Manufacture. 



By A. H. Hews, North Cambridge. 



When your Committee recently invited me to give you a talk on; 

 "Flower Pots and their Manufacture," I was at first strongly 

 tempted to decline, feeling myself to be but poorly gifted in that 

 direction. But as the invitation went further and allowed me the 

 alternative of reading a paper, it seemed hardly courteous or 

 possible to refuse. 



Some of you may be aware of the existence of a Centenary 

 club in Philadelphia, to which I have the honor of belonging ; but 

 as it may be new to others, I take the liberty of mentioning it. 

 My membership is due to the fact that, sometime previous to the 

 year 1765, my great grandfather commenced manufacturing 

 pottery in the town of Weston ; and through three successive 

 generations (my own being the fourth) the business has continued 

 in the direct family line without a break. This makes our firm 

 eligible to the Centenary club, which consists of firms that have 

 had an uninterrupted ancestral record of one hundred years or 

 more in the same business. Having alluded to the existence of 

 this club, may I be permitted to mention an item or two in 

 connection with it, which may be of interest to you. 



Up to the present time we have found but thirty-one firms in the 

 United States that can claim membership. The leading one 

 among them is the Francis Perot's Sons Malting Company, 

 established in 1687 — 208 years of unbroken business record. 

 The account given us at our first annual dinner by a member of 

 this firm, of the early days of the business and its varying 

 fortunes — also of the interesting process of malt making — was 

 in itself well worth the trip to Philadelphia. Anather remarkable 

 fact concerning this club is that of the thirty-one firms which 

 compose it twenty-one are in the state of Pennsylvania. 



