Flower Pots are of various sizes and names: -

Dr. Lindley has proposed a very judicious change in the nomenclature of flower pots, by suggesting that they should be called according to their greatest diameter. At present the words "Fours," "Sixes," etc, intend no more than that there are so many to the cast, a piece of information conveying nothing worth knowing: - but by the new nomenclature, "Eighteens," will be pots of eighteen inches in diameter; "Fifteens," fifteen inches, and so on; it occupies the third column in the preceding table.

The above are about the sizes in inches, for at each pottery they rather differ in size, and none of the pots shrink exactly alike during the burning.

At some of the country potteries, also, the gradation and size are somewhat different. Thus, at Mr. Paul's Pottery, near Fareham, Hants, the sizes are the following:

Thimbles are sometimes called "small nineties," and thumbs, "large nineties".

The Philadelphia potters have long pursued the plan proposed by Dr. Lindley, and those at distant points who may desire to order, have only to express the size in inches, i. e., the diameter at top.

The form and material also vary. Mr. Beck makes them very successfully of slate; and the prejudice against glazed pots is now exploded.

It was formerly considered important to have the pots made of a material as porous as possible; but a more miserable delusion never was handed down untested from one generation to another. Stoneware and chinaware are infinitely preferable, for they keep the roots more uniformly moist and warm. Common garden pots if not plunged, should be thickly painted. Mr. W. P. Ayres recommends large pots to be employed, and there is no doubt that this is a system much abridging the gardener's labour; but as with due care small pots will produce magnificent specimen plants, I cannot recommend an adoption of large pots, ensuring as they do such an immense sacrifice of room in the hot and green-houses. Captain Thurtcll, the most successful of glowers of the Pelargonium, never employs pots larger than twenty-fours.

It is usual to have saucers in which to place flower pots when in the house, and so far as preventing stains and the occurrence of dirt, they are deserving adoption; but as to their being used for applying water to plants, they are worse than useless. The great difficulty in pot-cultivation is to keep the drainage regular, and no more effective preventive of this could be devised than keeping a pot in a saucer containing water. No plan could be invented more contrary to nature; for we all know that she supplies moisture to the surface of the soil, and allows it to descend, thus supplying the upper roots first. To facilitate draining, and yet to retain the tidiness secured by the saucer, Mr. Hunt has had flowerpots made with elevations, on which the pots are placed. (Fig. 46.) But this is not the only advantage derivable from them. They prevent the entry of worms, may be employed with common stands, allow a current of air to pass beneath them, and their form is elegant.

Mr. Brown (Fig. 47) has proposed a pot with hollow sides, the vacuity to be filled with water through a hole in the rim, or left empty, as occasion requires. The water, he considers, will prevent the plants suffering from want of moisture; and when empty, the roots will be preserved from being killed by evaporation. But surely applying the water to the sides will be an extra inducement for the roots to gather there, an effect most desirable to avoid, and wetting the outsides of the pot is a very doubtful mode of preventing the reduction of temperature.

Fig. 46.

Saul's Fountain Flower Pot (Fig. 48), seems open to the same objections, with the additional disadvantages of not being easily drained, and being more expensive and cumbersome. The water also is forced in at the bottom of the pot, contrary to the course of nature in applying moisture to plants. "An outer basin is made on the bottom of the pot, to which the water enters at a, and is carried round the pot in the basin, there being two or three holes through the pot's bottom bbb. By these means the water is drawn up from the basin by the roots of the plants (!) or, if it should be desirable to prevent it from being drawn up, the exterior orifices of the holes, which open into the basin or saucer, may be closed (!) The fountain is supplied with water by taking out the stopper c, the entrance into the basin at a, being at that moment closed; and as soon as the water runs over at c, the cork or stopper is put in, and the stopper at a removed." - Gard. Mag. March, 1843, 136.

Mr. Stephens' Flower Pot (Fig. 49) is intended to supply water to the plant where it is most wanted, and to protect it at the same time from slugs and other creeping insects, which will not pass over the water between the two rims. - Ibid.

Mr. Rendle, the intelligent proprietor of the Plymouth Nursery, proposed to improve the drainage of pots, by elevating and piercing their bottoms. This, and Mr. Brown's, suggested to me that of which Fig. 50 is a section.

Fig. 47.

Fig. 48.

Fig. 49.

Fig. 50.

It is merely two pots, one fitting within another, having its bottom indented and pierced as proposed by Mr. Rendle, but not touching the outer pot by half an inch all round. This is a most effectual form to secure drainage, and to prevent the evaporation from the sides of the inner pot, the intervening stratum of confined air being a bad conductor of heat. It has the merit too of cheapness. - Johnson's Gardener's Almanack.