General Notices. 517 



degree of space in the structures in which they are grown. And it is not 

 to discourage any attempt at economy that we now express our opinions on 

 the subject, but because where it is carried to excess, as it often is, the 

 effects are at once inimical to all parties concerned — the labors of the 

 gardener are doubled, the result he arrives at unsatisfactory, and the 

 proprietor receives a less amount of gratification from his plants than he 

 otherwise might. There can, we think, be no doubt that the cause of this 

 overcrowding system arises in most cases from the attempt to do too much 

 — in the wish to grow five hundred plants where the accommodation is in 

 reality only sufficient for one hundred. Nor is this all. The kinds of 

 plants are so diversified, that, independently of their being spoilt for want 

 of proper room for development, the circumstances under which they exist 

 are, though perhaps favorable to a few, directly opposed to the many. It is 

 no uncommon circumstance to find representatives of every oppositely 

 constituted plant jumbled indiscriminately together into one small " green- 

 house," constituting a very olla podrida of vegetation — muUum in parvo 

 with a vengeance. The results are easily arrived at from induction, even 

 if tliey were not so physically apparent. In pliysical as in mental attain- 

 ments, he that would accomplish too much generally attains nothing, while 

 the direct application of tlie necessary means to a definite purpose always 

 leads success in its train. 



But these remarks are the more especially intended to apply to the winter 

 storing of plants, and the present season is an appropriate one for intro- 

 ducing them. In all establishments there are amongst the migratory por- 

 tion, i. e., such as are periodically removed from the greenhouses to the 

 open air in summer, and vice versa in the autumn, a goodly portion of 

 antique specimens of no beauty and possessing no degree of interest. 

 They are year after year suffered to occupy time and space, to the material 

 detriment of others having claims for all the care that can be bestowed upon 

 them, and of which they are more than worthy. We know of many gardens 

 where huge plants — of kinds long since justly discarded from all modern 

 collections — are allowed seriously to encroach upon the space available for 

 storing plants in winter, simply on the plea — " We have had them so long." 

 Now, we have no desire to discard old friends, far from it ; between that 

 and the case for which we are arguing there is no analogy. And as one 

 mode of making the most of limited space available for plants in winter, we 

 say — immediately discard all useless or uninteresting specimens. 



Yet, independently of thus encroaching on space, we have scarcely 

 found an exception — especially among amateurs or gentlemen possessing 

 small places in the vicinity of towns — where the overcrowding system is 

 carried to its utmost verge, frustrating all hopes of obtaining really credita- 

 ble plants, except perhaps for a few favored kinds, which are allowed to 

 occupy the best situations. Such collections are, for the most part, subject 

 to all the ill effects of damp and its attendants, mildew and rottenness. The 

 free circulation of air becomes impossible ; weakness and etiolation are sure 

 to result. Half-ripened shoots have no chance of elaborating and concen- 

 trating their fluids ; flowers are scanty or ill-formed as an inevitable conse- 



