Drainage of Flower-Pots. y^ 



DRAINAGE OF FLOWER-POTS. 



By Peter Henderson, Bergen City, N.J. 



In the May and June numbers of your Journal, your learned correspond- 

 ent, Mr. A. Veitch of New Haven, Conn., has lengthy and elaborate 

 communications on this subject. I trust I shall not try the patience of 

 your readers by my reply. Mr. Veitch offers no new argument for the 

 practice, but merely repeats, in a wordy way, some of the few stereotyped 

 ones used by all advocates of drainage in pots. 



He quotes from my recent work, " Practical Floriculture," an expression 

 I there use, that the practice of draining flower-pots is " wrong in theory, and 

 perfectly useless in practice ; " and takes exception to it in rather a peculiar 

 way when he asks the question, " Is it because such drainage is unnecessary 

 that it is wrong to do so ? " I most certainly think it is ; for any work that 

 is unnecessary to perform is certainly useless, and, if useless, is a waste of 

 labor, and hence wrong. 



But this question of drainage is not whether plants require it or not : we 

 all agree on that. But the question at issue is in what way the water passes 

 from the pot ; whether from the bottom, or whether from the sides. We 

 who advocate that the practice of crocking pots is useless claim that nine- 

 tenths of the escape of moisture is from the sides : they who practise 

 " bottom drainage " would signify by so doing, that, in their opinion, the es- 

 cape of water is mainly from the bottom. If any one wishes to decide 

 this question for himself, let him take half a dozen glazed pots, such as 

 water will not percolate through, let him knock the whole bottom out 

 if he will, and " drain " in the usual way with potsherds, charcoal, or any 

 thing else he sees fit. Let him also take half a dozen of the ordinary 

 style of flower-pot, fill these up with the same soil as used for the glazed 

 pots, but without drainage. Let the same sort of plants be grown in 

 each lot, and under the same conditions of temperature and moisture. 

 Let him note the result three weeks after the experiment has been made, 

 and if he does not find that the glazed ^^o\.s, with the bottom drainage, show 

 indications of stagnant water in a greater degree than those in the porous 

 pots, then all my observations on this subject have gone for nothing. 



