124 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
Novembeb 20. 
plants and seedlings. The pots are so impregnated with 
the essences of the strong, clear water given since last 
spring, that they, the said essences, are now actually in 
a concreted form on the outer surface of all the dirty 
pots which had strong water given them last summer; 
the same as the “furring” of the inside of a teakettle 
from “clear,” hard water holding lime in solution. 
The way to know if it is the “ fogging” principle or 
the poisonous exhalation from the crusty pot, which 
affects the leaves, is this—the “ fogging ” principle in¬ 
variably takes olf the youngest leaves first; the poisoned 
air never hurts the younger leaves till the old leaves are 
first charged with it; and the reason is this—old leaves, 
unless they are too old for work, suck in whatever kind 
of air that may surround them ; while young leaves, up 
to a certain age, never suck at all, and so escape the 
poison from the dirty pots; but, being the more delicate 
and tender of the two kinds, they are the more easily 
affected with damp. 
My own pots are not so much crusted, or, rather, were 
not so at the autumnal potting, as some other pots 
which I have seen on my rounds, and the reason for 
this seems to me to be, that I never did “ clarify ” tlie 
strong waters for them; and that, consequently, the 
stout brown did not impart the noxious crust so readily 
to the pots. Still, my pots were not quite so free from 
impurities as they ought to have been at the last pot¬ 
ting from the borders; and 1 was hurried with that 
potting, to get in the plants from the wet. From what 
I observed with others, I kept a watch to see how ray 
pots told on the plants after being put in close confine¬ 
ment under glass, and I soon perceived dull, hanging 
looks, generally, among all the plants. 
I have often taken notice of the same disagreeable 
appearance at this season, without having sufficient 
time on my hands to enquire into the actual cause of 
this; and 1 may have thought it to have resulted from 
too much freedom with the roots at taking-up time ; 
but now, since I have had time enough to examine the 
matter properly, I find that it is very dangerous ever to 
use dirty pots which have been formerly watered with 
any kind of liquid-manure. That such manure-water 
impregnates the pot, to a dangerous extent, and that the 
impregnating matter is very hurtful, as I have just told; 
and that the only remedy is to wash and scrub every 
such pot as often as any disagreeable matter appears to 
come through it, or, at all events, to have the pots clean 
at every potting. 
I find that a pot may appear to be clean, and dry, and 
free from any brown or green slime, and still be a 
dangerous pot to use without a good scrubbing. The 
clear liquid-manure does not always render a pot dis¬ 
agreeable to the eye, while it may he in the most 
poisonous state for a plant, particularly a soft-wooded 
plant. You have only to apply a certain test, which I 
shall describe pi’esently, to see the real danger of the 
case; and this brings me home to tell of how I succeeded 
to my own perfect satisfaction. 
As soon as I perceived the difference and change in 
my stock, I collected all my spare pots, and put the 
different sizes together in a pond; next day, or the day 
after, I took a hard scrubbing-brush and a bench to the 
side of the pond, and began a regular cleansing, inside 
and out, and got all the dirt off with very little trouble; 
but those pots in whicli I applied liquid-manure had a 
hard crust of different shades of white, or red, or brown, 
and these I made more conspicuous with the brush than 
they were before, without being able to remove the crusts, 
save very partially. I knew the alkali in soft soap 
would remove any stains caused by vegetation on pots, 
stone floors, steps, composition, and the like; but it 
had very little effect on the crust from the liquid-manur* 
iugs, or from the manured composts used in the pots. 
I then put all my crusted pots to one side, till I had all 
my other pots clean and dry for use, then I put a large 
handful of soda into a few gallons of water in a tub, 
plunged the crusted pots in it, and then left them for a 
couple of days, when the crust would yield before the 
brush, as the beard would before one of Mechi’s magic 
razors; and the thing was offhand that very day. 
Notwithstanding, all my pots in use were not to my 
mind at all after this scrubbing; the whole must go 
through the process, or T am baffled after all. I then 
took so many of one size, 48-pots, to the green¬ 
house, and exchanged them for so many dirty pots, first 
turning out the ball on my hand, regulating the crocks, 
snatched at such worms as I could see, or pricking in a 
long darning needle after them or where I expected 
them to lodge—this pricking soon drove the fellows out 
on to the surface of the ball, and so to their utter 
destruction; then, a dry, clean pot, as good and better 
than a span-new one, was whelmed over the ball, and 
with a few strokes of the bottom of the pot on the hand, 
and a little shuffling on the surface with the fingers, to 
make all straight and tight on the top, the plant was in 
the best pot for it in the place; and so on with every 
plant in this curious collection of odds and ends and 
middlings. 
In less than a fortnight, what with all this, and the 
watering from a rain-water butt, which was chilled from 
the boiler in the kitchen-range, you never saw such a 
sudden change, from moping and drooping, to lively, 
erect, green, and shining leaves! Why, it is a real 
j)leasure to watch them now, or to spend an hour amongst 
them, when you can spare it; and all through their 
cleanliness. Yet, I have seen a whole house full of pots 
as clean as new dolls, at this season, without the plants 
looking nearly so well as mine do. I have had such a 
house to do with, myself, over and over again, but never, 
till now, did I prove the value of newly-made pots to be 
inferior to old pots 2 >^operly prepared. 
I see, plainly enough, how this difference comes about, 
at least, late in the autumn. New j^ots go on for a long 
time, sucking away the moisture from the balls, and 
parting with it hy evaporation from the outer surface ; 
this evaporation causes such a degree of cold to the 
roots as few would believe. Plants, in general, do not 
want much water at this late season; but put them into 
new pots, and, what with the sucking of the pots, and 
the evaporation afterwards, you must water three times 
oftener than tlie plants require, to keep up this drain, 
besides the chill to the roots inside from the cold 
caused by this very evaporation. All this I have also 
proved to a certainty, under my own eye, this very 
season. 
Here, I ought to make a suitable apology for having 
ever recommended the use of new pots in preference to 
old ones, for certain seeds and plants, without the proper 
qualification; that qualification, I believe to be this: 
that all new pots wdiatever, and for whatever purpose, 
ought to be thoroughly w'etted through and through in 
soft pond water before a plant is put into any of them. 
They should also be quite dry inside, at least, at potting 
time; else if they, or any pots, are even damp in the 
inside when filled, the layer of soil next to the pot will 
stick to the damp sides, the roots will hold still closer 
when they reach the sides, and the consequence will be, 
that when the ball is turned out, the tips of the roots 
will snap off like glass, holding to the sides of the pot, 
to the certain injury of the plant, if this is done during 
the growing season. When you turn out a ball, and 
find some of the roots broken off and fj.xed to the sides 
of the pot, you may depend upon it that pot was too 
wet for potting at the last shift. There is a way to get 
over this, however; and, hy a strict attention at thp 
potting bench, I would not hesitate to pot in wot pots 
taken in from the rain; that way is simply to have a 
potful of porfootly dry sand, or dusty peat, or very 
