18 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



Some of you may ask how many could be made in a day- 

 "When some of the boys in the old pottery ' ' broke the record " by 

 making one thousand three-inch pots in ten hours, I am sure it 

 created as much excitement among the other workmen as a 

 Harvard-Yale boating bulletin suspended in a store window seems 

 now-a-days to arouse in the minds of Cambridge students. 



Then came the machine, which, however, made only small pots, 

 up to about five inches in size : and while it had previously takea 

 an experienced man to make his thousand three-inch pots per day, 

 a smart boy without any previous experience whatever, could, in 

 the same number of hours make three thousand on the machine. 

 This was back in the sixties. If I told you how many we make 

 now per day, you might question my veracity. 



As I have previously said, these machines do not successfully 

 make pots larger than the five or six inch size, and when the 

 standard pot was adopted a few years ago, the hand process was 

 practically abandoned in the principal potteries of the country, 

 and the use of what is technically termed a jigger succeeded it. 

 This is a revolving disk propelled by machinery. These disks, or 

 jigger-heads, are made of different sizes and fitted with various 

 rings. 



Plaster moulds are made in vei'y large numbers for each size of 

 pots, and the larger standard (from six to twelve inch) pots are 

 all made at the present time in these moulds. With us, pots from 

 twelve to twenty-four inches are made as of yore by han'd on the 

 wheel. The making of the- pot is not, it should be explained, its 

 only cost ; previously to that comes the preparation of the clay. 

 The hundred years from 1765 to 1865, saw no improvement in the 

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

 or tub, the motive power being furnished by an ox. There is even 

 a tradition to the effect that sometimes when the ox was busy a 

 cow was substituted in his place. Personally I cannot vouch for 

 such a statement ; but the old horse in the mill I shall never 

 forget. When I had reached the mature age of six years I was 

 considered old enough to go to the factory, before and after 

 school, and drive that horse to grind clay. As I loved my books 

 no better than the average urchin of the same age does today, 

 that was probably the only " grinding" I did. 



The various other processes remained as crude in 1865 as they 

 had been a century previous — the drying, firing, and all connected 

 with the manufacture. 



