16 
IMPROVEMENTS IN FLOWER POTS. 
obstacle ; the material, nevertheless, might be employed with some advantage, 
and especially in damp situations. But it is principally beside conservative walls, 
trellis walks, and other situations where the plants are either permanent, or 
renewed every year, that it will be completely available in the open garden. 
On such plants as Butea frondosa, and B. superba, the beautiful Bugainmllma 
spectabilis, and the large trumpet-flowered Solandra grandijlora, all of which are 
handsome stove plants that grow to an amazing length when planted in a border, 
and are seldom seen to flower, the system appears calculated to exert considerable 
influence. And in conjunction with a judicious course of pruning and routinal 
management, we may confidently expect that many of the so-called stove 
climbers, such as the Stepkanotis, several species of Passiflora and Bignonia, may 
be induced to thrive and blossom freely in a greenhouse. It is an essentially 
different practice from growing in poor soil in a small pot exposed to the drying 
and varying action of the atmosphere, and yielding an uncertain and inconstant 
amount of nourishment. That is a starving system, and is followed by a yellow, 
sickly appearance ; this, a limitation of growth, without disturbing the health. 
IMPROVEMENTS IN FLOWER POTS. 
In a former volume we furnished some suggestions for improving flower-pots, 
and directed attention to an improvement patented by Mr. Hunt. Since then the 
principles upon which our remarks rested have been more generally acknowledged ; 
and the benefits accruing from planting in shallow pots, and facilitating a circulation 
of air through the soil, are now no longer matters for speculation, but the confirmed 
principles of practice. And it is with pleasure that we find our hints have been 
carried out by Mr. Hunt, in conjunction with the leading features of his original 
patented articles ; and as these are executed after various handsomely ornamented 
patterns, as well as in the common material, they are equally available for the green- 
house or the drawing-room. For such plants as Gloxinias, Achimenes, and 
Tropseolums, they cannot be too highly esteemed. 
But whilst for the cultivation of many exotics, shallow pots are thus highly 
rated, we must reserve a special exception in the case of truly bulbous plants, 
which push downwards long fibrous roots without lateral rootlets, such as the Nar- 
cissus and Amaryllis tribes. A deep pot is notoriously the most appropriate for 
these plants. Exclusive of this point, however, the remarks which have been 
advanced on the patent pot with respect to other plants, are equally applicable to 
bulbs ; and to remedy this exception, they are now manufactured of a greater 
depth, specially for these plants. 
These modifications cannot fail to be useful ; but the improvement which we 
now desire more particularly to notice, is Mr. Hunt's New Hyacinth Pots. These 
