m QUALITY OF POTS. 



we see in nature. A plant in the open ground, or in the border 

 of a well-managed conservatory, grows fast, acquires a rich 

 deep green healthy colour, and produces its flowers and fruit as 

 soon as it has arrived at the proper age ; on .the other hand, 

 the same kind of plant, under the same circumstances, managed 

 by the same gardener, but kept in a pot and subjected to a 

 course of shifting, although it may be healthy at first, soon 

 ceases growing, and becomes yellow, lean, and starved. It is 

 not, indeed,^ the wish of every cultivator to grow plants for 

 horticultural exhibitions. Beautiful as large well-grown 

 specimens may be, it is not in every garden that they can be 

 properly accommodated; and where that is the case, it is 

 useless to attempt it. 



Gardeners till lately entertained the opinion that in pot 

 cultivation it is of great importance that the pot itself should 

 be manufactured from some soft porous material. The latter 

 was thought to have the merit of keeping roots in free com- 

 munication with the air. But no well-grown plants are ever 

 so placed as to have their roota cut off from communication 

 with the atmosphere ; the loose crocks used for drainage, and 

 the interstices in the soil itseK, enable the air to reach the 

 roots without any assistance from the sides of the pots. Others 

 were of opinion that the porous sides of soft-burnt pots act as a 

 continual drain, carrying off the superfluous water of the soil. 

 That is no doubt true ; but there is as much inconvenience as 

 advantage attending it, because, in dry weather, the earth in 

 pots is disadvantageously dried by the escape of vapour through 

 their sides, and cooled down by the rapid evaporation going on 

 there. Besides, such a mode of drainage cannot be necessary 

 if the bottom of the pots is preserved in a proper state. The 

 absorbent power of soft-burnt garden pots, a quality due to 

 their porosity, was also regarded as rendering them better than 

 "hard ones for cultivation. Experiment has, however, settled 

 the question by showing that plants will grow in glass, in slate, 

 in glazed earthenware just as well as in soft-burnt pots ; and it 

 is now admitted on all hands that if plants are ill-grown it is 

 the fault of the gardener, not of the pot, whether it be hard 

 or softr 



