GARDEN-POTS. 



7 



between them. But for packing purposes, in which 

 the heads of plants are often tied into less space 

 for travelling- than their pots occupy, this gain of 

 space by the abolition of rims would be very consi- 

 derable. Of course, even then some packing material, 

 such as moss, would have to be placed as an elastic 

 and safe buffer between the pots. But almost the 

 less of this the better for safe transport. In cases of 

 breakages in transit it will generally be found to have 

 arisen from an excess of packing material between 

 the pots, and the nearer to a uniform hardness the 

 entire base of the jjackage can be made, the better and 

 the safer. Hence the packing material can hardly be 

 too thin, as it is there that all the evils and destruc- 

 tive effects of displacement of pots, and the sudden 

 jerks, and other accidents of conveyance occur. The 

 rims of pots also become mechanical obstructions to 

 close packing, and hence it happens, as might have 

 been expected, that a basket packed full of long toms, 

 with a minimum amount of semi-elastic packing 

 between them, will travel more safely than one filled 

 with pots with rims, with double, treble, or four times 

 the amount of packing between them. 



Rims are, however, useful for lifting the larger 

 pots, and hence they are likely to be used for such ; 

 cultivators having also got so accustomed to rims 

 that not a few consider the rimless ones unsightly. 

 But millions of pots are used for cultural and propa- 

 gating purposes, the growing of small plants for sale 

 or otherwise, the culture of bulbs, succession pines 

 and plants, and for myriads of other operations in 

 horticulture, in which the appearance of the pots is 

 of no moment whatever. 



Not, however, that there is anything unsightly in 

 long toms. On the contrary, as they are exceed- 

 ingly well made, each pot being as like another as 

 two j)eas of the same soi-t, a house filled with plants 

 in them has a charmingly business-like and orderly 

 appearance. As already stated, the plants can be 

 packed so much more closely together, that from five 

 hundi-ed to a thousand more plants may be packed in 

 a very moderate-sized house or frame.* 



Long toms, like many other so-called and most 

 useful inventions, are rather the revival of an old 

 than the origination of a new idea. Many of the older 

 bulb pots and pine pots of the olden times in horti- 

 culture, were almost identical in form with modern 

 long toms. Some of these even carried the depth 

 in proportion to the width to greater length than 

 in the long toms, and it was a notable feature that 

 the deeper they were the less rims they had, as if 

 the rims had been impressed into the service of 

 making them deeper. 



The modern bulb pot (Fig. 3), which still survives, 

 though it can hardly be said to be popular in Eng- 

 land, gives a fair idea of those very lanky, and, it 



must be confessed, rather imperfect long toms of 

 those ancient times, in which the 

 arrival of a hundred pots caused 

 greater excitement than the un- 

 packing and safe storage of ten 

 thousand does to-day. These bulb 

 pots may be had in five or six 

 difi:"erent sizes, from 4f inches in 

 diameter to 8 inches, and are double 

 the ijrice of garden-pots of the or- 

 dinary form. They have the great Fig. 3. — Deep 

 merit of holding a considerably Bultfp^i! '''' 

 greater quantity of soil, and of 

 enabling the jjlants, alike when growing and bloom- 

 ing, to be placed more closely together. ' 



The Oxford — This is a most useful pot for train- 

 ing purposes, brought prominently into notice and 

 invented by Mr. Matthews. It 

 is made exactly like other pots, 

 with the addition that the rim 

 is perforated (Fig. 4) . This is 

 one of the most convenient and 

 simple arrangements. for train- 

 ing purposes. So many plants 

 — such, for example, as Pelar- 

 goniums, Chrysanthemums, and 

 hosts of others — have to be tied 

 down, that the practical im- 

 portance of this simple contrivance can hardly be ex- 

 aggerated. The perforated rim almost abolishes hoop 

 training ; and will go a long way towards reducing 

 the numbers, and for many plants will cause the 

 total abolition of stakes. All that is needful is 

 to slip the ties through the holes in the rim, care- 

 fully draw down the longest shoots, and proceed 

 to make use of these first shoots as holdfasts for 

 the second, and so on till the whole are trained ; or, 

 in cases where considerable tension is needful, the 

 whole of the ties can proceed directly from the rims. 

 In the larger sizes these perforated rims are equally 

 useful for attaching trellises to. The price of 

 the Oxford is one -half more than that of ordinary 

 pots. 



The Alpine Pot. — This, in general terms, may 

 be described as a double pot (Fig. 5). Its main pur- 

 pose is to protect the roots from sudden and extreme 

 changes of heat and cold, wet and drought; aiming, 

 as far as may be, to maintain the roots moist 

 and cool. This is of far more moment in the case 

 of Alpine plants than of any other. For not a few 

 of them in their native homes grow with their feet — ■ 

 that is, their roots — in a bath of snow-water, while 

 they lean their beauteous cheeks against the thick- 

 ribbed ice. Bearing these natural conditions in mind. 



'Fig. 4. — Oxford, or 

 Perforated Eiin Pot. 



