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ON AN IMPROVED KIND OF FLOWER-POT. 
Having employed with success an improved form of garden-pot, I am induced 
to recommend it to your readers, being perfectly convinced of its superiority for 
growing plants in the conservatory and hothouse. The invention which I have 
tried, and now recommend, consists of a double pot in the form of one pot inside 
another, joined at the bottom, so as to allow a hole for drainage, but leaving a 
space all round between the sides, of an inch or less in width, to be filled with 
water, or moss saturated with water, according to the nature of the plant potted. 
In the usual method of potting, water cannot be supplied gradually and mode- 
rately as nature supplies it, owing to the rapid evaporation caused by the porous 
and absorbing material of the pot, and also by the atmosphere, generally highly 
heated, acting on a large surface of it ; so that watering must be sudden and 
copious. Yet the most essential roots, those close on the surface of the mould, are 
exposed to be rapidly dried and destroyed, and the pot itself not only abstracts the 
moisture from the soil, but also from the greater part of the roots. By the practice 
of placing pots in some cases in pans of water, the lower roots only are benefited, 
but the air is excluded from them, and they are the least adapted for elaborating 
sap, on account of their distance from the light and air. 
By the construction which I suggest, and have tried, the plant seldom requires 
watering, except by syringing over the leaves, as the water is supplied to the plant 
by filtering through the inner pot gradually and constantly, at a due temperature, 
and in proportion to the necessities of the plant : drainage is not impeded, and the 
imperceptible steam arising from the surface of the water, may either be allowed to 
nourish the leaves of the plant, and maintain the elasticity of the air in the house, 
or by covering the interval between the two pots, it can be retained to raise 
the temperature of the water. Pots thus constructed, and placed on a com- 
mon smoke flue, combine the advantages of the hot-water apparatus with the 
facility of heating by the common flue. If supplied with water at 65°, they 
retain the temperature without allowing the plant to be exhausted by the highly 
heated atmosphere, and obviate the incumbrance of a pit, if arranged on shelves 
near the glass ; they likewise furnish immediate means for supplying a nourishing 
bottom-heat to plants, are easily attended to, cause no litter, and if the external 
pot be painted of a light stone colour, they make a very neat appearance. 
There are plants of course to which this method is inapplicable, but to many 
it ensures an indispensable means of obtaining healthy luxuriance. It is well adapted 
to Hydrangeas, Lobelias, potted Cucumber plants, Pines (not fruiting), Cockscombs, 
Gloxinias, &c, and to cuttings it supplies a gradual moisture highly favourable for 
causing them to strike. 
In my experiments I employed two flower-pots, one inside the other, joined at 
VOL. V. NO. LVI. A A 
