Pots are the first consideration, and these are considered under the title Flower Pot.

Materials Required

These must not be sifted, but the pebbles and rough vegetable fibres be allowed to remain. 31

Mr. Errington has in his potting-shed twenty bins containing as follows:-

1. Strong tenacious loam.

2. Half-rotten leaf-mould.

3. Heath soil.

4. Horse manure.

5. Cow manure.

6. Charcoal wood-ashes.

7. Fine bone manure.

8. Sharp sand.

9. Burnt turf of No. 1.

10. Sphagnum, well scalded.

11. Heath soil of No. 3, in one inch squares.

12. Loam of No. 1, in one inch squares.

13. One-inch mixed drainage.

14. Two-inch mixed drainage.

15. Mixed drainage, small.

16. One-inch bottom-crocks.

17. Two-inch bottom-crocks.

18. Three-inch bottom-crocks.

19. Charcoal, large lumps.

20. One-inch boiled bone for bottoms.

Bin 1. (Strong Tenacious Loam)

This is obtained from very old rest land, on a clayey or marly sub-soil; the more rushes and old coarse grass it contains, the better it is for the potting-shed; this is piled up in a sharp ridge out of doors, so as to exclude rain; it should be used for general purposes, when from six to twelve months old; I house a smaller portion in the compost shed after being dried in the sun; and thif, I use for very particular purposes, such in fact as require, according to my estimation, lumps of turf in its native state, and for these purposes it is chopped into squares for bin 12. This loam is chopped down from a perpendicular facing, (like cutting hay,) when wanted for bin 1, and being somewhat mellow, a considerable portion of the mere soil fills out loose in the act of chopping. This is rejected, and the masses of chopped turf alone fill bin 1.

Bin. 2. (Half-Rotten Leaf-Mould)

This is generally slightly mixed with rotten dung, as it is the worn out pit linings, which have generally a little dung blended with the leaves. By lying in the compost yard for a few-months, the outside becomes mellowed down, and after shaking some of the finest out through a quarter of an inch riddle, it is passed through a sieve of at least one inch in the mesh, and what comes through this is put into bin 2.

Bin 3. (Heath Soil)

Obtained from Delamere Forest, in parts where the heather is cut for making besoms. The upper surface of this heath soil is composed of heath leaves and moss, in a raw or half-decomposed state, and too fresh for the purposes of potting; but beneath this, and in contact with the gray sand, lies a flake of vegetable matter full of the roots of heather, possessing little sand, and compressed by the weight of centuries. This, when divested of the dirty sand under it, and of the mossy and raw matter on the surface, is put in bin 3, after being half-dried.

Bin 4. (Horse Manure, Or Old Horse Droppings)

Obtain them before high fermentation takes place, and ridge them up in the compost yard, three feet in width, three feet in height, and instantly roof them over (to shut in the gases) with double turves, each overlapping the other: in this way a slight fermentation takes place, which, being arrested, is beneficial. Rain is at all times excluded from this in the compost yard by the roofing.