G-AKDEN-POTS AND POTTING. 



GAEDEN-POTS AND POTTING. 



GABBEN-POTS. 



IT is impossible to over-estimate the vital im- 

 portance of these appliances and operations in the 

 prosecution and progress of horticulture. Supposing 

 the supply of garden-pots and the ability to use them 

 withdrawn ! horticulture would not merely stand 

 still, but speedily relapse, into a state of chaos and 

 retrogression. From seed to finished produce, pots 

 minister to the wants of plants, and nurture them 

 carefully through aU the preliminary stages and 

 processes from start to finish. Pots virtuaUj' endow 

 plants with locomotive powers, making them safely 

 portable at all times and seasons, and iu all places ; 

 thus enabling cultivators to concentrate the gems of 

 the vegetable kingdom into any given area. By 

 their exclusive and retentive forces, they also pro- 

 vide specially suitable food for any number of plants,^ 

 and furnish a separate larder for each when neces- 

 sary. Pots of proper quality, skilfully used, hold 

 their food-stores almost as securely and safely for 

 the roots, as iron safes with Chubb-locks hold the 

 property of their owners. 



But it is not needful to dwell on the usefulness of 

 pots : they are vital necessities to the pursuit of 

 modem horticulture. The demand for them has be- 

 come so urgent and extensive as to have created and 

 sustained a virtually new trade of enormous dimen- 

 sioils — that of the special manufacture of garden- 

 pots. 



The Garden-pot Trade. — Doubtless for many 

 years, in the majority of general potteries, garden- 

 pots have been made. Many of these, from the very 

 circumstances of the case, were more or less inferior. 

 No special preparation of clay or earth was considered 

 necessary, and, as the quantities turned out were 

 limited, few or no special hands were kept for that 

 purpose. 



All this is completely changed now. One firm 

 alone — certainly one of the largest in the trade — 

 to whose courtesy we are indebted for some of the 

 facts of this chapter, turns out garden-pots at the 

 rate of a million and a quarter or a million and a 

 half a year. Probably other makers almost equal 

 this enormous average, while there are hundreds of 

 provincial potteries spread broadcast over the country 

 where garden-pots are made and distributed; so 

 that thirty millions a year would probably be a low 

 estimate of the actual number produced. Few facts 

 could give a more vivid picture of the enormous 

 extent and growing power of modem horticulture 

 than the reading of such figures ; or better still, 

 were that possible, a bird's-eye view of those piled- 

 up mountains of millions of garden-pots. Mere 



figures give poor and meagre notions of facts. For 

 example, the number of gallons of bitter beer or 

 stout consumed can hardly be estimated by figures. 

 But enter the stores of full, and the yards of piled- 

 up empty casks, and the magmtude of the consump- 

 tion grows more and more manifest. Fortunately 

 for most of the makers of the finer qualities of 

 garden-pots, their reserve stores are seldom very 

 large. The demands in the form of orders are so 

 urgent and constant, as almost to outrun supplies. 

 Hardly have the pots been drawn from the kilns 

 before they are whipped ofE by road, rail, or river to 

 all parts of the three kiugdoms ; and the potters are 

 such adepts in the art of packing, that as a. rule 

 not more breakages will be found after a journey 

 of three hundred miles than take place in one of 

 three. 



The pots are not only distributed throughout 

 Great Britain and Ireland, but to other parts of 

 Europe, to Africa, and New Zealand. Consignments 

 of fifty thousand pots at one time are not unknown 

 to the trade, and some of the great nurserymen use 

 from a hundred and fifty thousand to a quarter of a 

 itdllion pots a year. Orders from a hundred thousand 

 down to forty thousand are comparatively common, 

 and, of course, from these large numbers downwards, 

 orders become thick as blackberries. Hence the gross 

 output of garden-pots a year cannot well be less than 

 that which has been stated. To the .question. Where 

 do they all go ? no very satisfactory answer can be 

 given. Of course, growers for sale, who after all 

 are by far the largest consumers of pots, seU their 

 pots with the plants, and as trade grows, and plants 

 increase, the demand for pots increases with it. 

 Hence firms that wanted one hundred thousand 

 last year, are likely to need one hundred and twenty 

 thousand next, and so in degree in private gar- 

 dens ; hence the demand for pots is sure to increase 

 and extend. The late agricultural depression, which 

 has lasted through several years, checked to some 

 extent the yearly increase of garden-pots. But it 

 has been reported recently that the trade is rapidly 

 recovering, and is likely to exceed all former dimen- 



Material and Quality. — "Were a horticultural 

 Eip Van Winkle to wake now, nothing would 

 astonish him so much as the enormous number 

 of garden-pots, and their improvement in shape, 

 texture, and quality. They are as unlike as 

 anything can well be to the older pots of English 

 manufacture, and the inferior ware often re- 

 ceived with plants from the Continent. The more 

 the worse, unfortunately applies to not a few of our 

 manufactured products. But the more the better, is 

 emphatically applicable to our modem garden-pots. 



