MAY. 219 



of wealth, but such as are adapted to the means and require- 

 ments of our population. 



Almost every individual here is dependent on industrious 

 exertion for support, and whenever such a manifestation of 

 taste is exhibited, it must be considered an evidence that the 

 possessor is stimulated by a pure love for the object itself. 



Few can afford to maintain a professed gardener, and such 

 establishments are, in most instances, conducted by the pro- 

 prietor, with the aid of his family and ordinary hired help. 

 As a consequence, there is springing up a class of practical 

 and intelligent people, embracing farmers, merchants, mechan- 

 ics, and professional men, their wives, sons and daughters, 

 whose skill in horticulture, arboriculture, and floriculture, would 

 do credit to a Paxton or a Lindley. 



This condition of things may be neither correctly viewed 

 nor duly appreciated in older and more wealthy sections of 

 the Union, where customs, and perhaps institutions, have led 

 many to consider labor and industry as degrading. To for- 

 eigners it is inexplicable. But it exists here, and will, no 

 doubt, continue so long as the Western people adopt the "go 

 ahead " maxim of Davy Crockett in preference to the pre- 

 cepts of Lord Chesterfield, and examples of Beau Nash. 



Our object in alluding to this subject is to call your atten- 

 tion to some special wants, to which it has given origin. 



First. There is needed a plan for a greenhouse, adapted 

 to the requirements of people under such circumstances. It 

 should embrace all the details for heating, ventilating, water- 

 ing, &c., after the most simple, cheap, and effective method ; 

 one which experience has already tested, and not the produc- 

 tion of some visionary schemer. 



Much has been published on all these points, — yet so great 

 is the discrepancy among authors, that, in attempting to de- 

 cide upon what is adapted to our wants, here, at the West, 

 the most intelligent is liable to misjudge. Who, by reading 

 any periodical or other work which we can command, can 

 say whether the brick-flue, air-tight stove, steam, Polmaise, 

 tank, or hot-water-pipe system is to be preferred. 



Last season we had occasion to select a plan for heating a 



