VARIOUS METHODS OF HEATING DESCRIBED IN DETAIL. 209 



its own fire and boiler, and be at the additional trouble of attend- 

 ing them too. This, however, springs from a fear entirely with- 

 out foundation, and we are convinced that a little experience in 

 the working of this double system of heating would so prove it. 

 It is a very singular attachment which some people have for old 

 methods and customs, that they will unflinchingly adhere to 

 them, however little merit they may have to recommend them. 

 Some individuals, with a self-sufficiency altogether incompatible 

 with knowledge, will smile or sneer at what they are pleased to 

 call the folly of enthusiasm, and, without seeming to be in any 

 way sensible of the importance of whatever tends to the im- 

 provement of horticulture, regard these innovations merely as 

 idle speculations of men who have nothing else to do but invent 

 them ; and while we cannot guard too much against the adoption 

 of methods that will prove inconvenient in practice, although 

 supported by theory, it is an injury to gardening, as an art, to 

 give an unqualified opposition to systems that have proved their 

 superiority, and are still capable of great improvement. This 

 plan is not introduced under the deceptive cognomen of cheap- 

 ness. Its cost will very much depend upon the circumstance of 

 position, and may, after all, be much less than some of the costly 

 and cumbrous apparatuses that are now in use. The easiness 

 with which it is worked adds an additional item to its worth, 

 for, when once set agoing, and understood, the veriest novice 

 could manage it. * 



* It is the common fate of new systems connected with the art of 

 horticulture, that they are eulogized beyond their real merits by their 

 advocates, and decried as strongly by their opponents j for every new 

 system has always both friends and foes, each of whom are unwilling to 

 adhere to the naked truth, and equally incapable of appreciating its 

 merits with exactness. When a person invents, or fancies he has 

 invented, something new, he is too much inclined to set a high value 

 upon it ; for, if it has cost him much labor, he is unwilling to think he 

 has been diligent in vain. He, therefore, magnifies what is merely an 

 alteration into an improvement, and probably prevails upon the imagi- 

 nation of others to fall into a false approbation of the system, and to 

 regard that as a valuable desideratum which, at the best, was only a 

 novelty. If durability and econo'my in working be allowed to constitute 

 any part of excellence in a system, then this one has especial claims to 

 our notice j a fact which cannot be said of many others. 



