ECONOMY IN FLORICULTURE. 
181 
least money and trouble, and, at the same time, bring about the highest wishes of 
the culturist in the best possible manner. 
To form a true notion, therefore, of whether any given mode of procedure is to 
be recommended for its cheapness, we must ascertain its actual entailment of expen- 
diture, in time and cash, from beginning to end, and also if the results it professes 
to realize are the very last at which the employer of it should aim. 
To illustrate what we have been saying, if the relative economy of two systems 
of heating were to be determined, it would not be sufficient to look at the first cost 
of their erection, and the amount of fuel they would consume, but the repairs they 
would subsequently need, the quantity of attention they would demand, and, more 
particularly, their capacity for doing the utmost that could be required of them 
adequately and satisfactorily, should be taken into account. Moreover, to put 
another case, if the cultivation of a plant, by two different methods, had to be 
investigated, in order to learn which was the most economical, beyond the calcula- 
tion of the actual money expense of each^ it would be essential to know which was 
performed quickest, and thus saved most time ; which easiest, and consequently 
spared most labour ; and which brought the plant into the finest and most orna- 
mental state. The last of these points, though very likely to be neglected altogether 
in such a calculation, is, we venture to say, incomparably the most important. 
We have sought thus to place the question of real economy in a clear light, 
that we may not be misunderstood in any observations which shall follow, and 
likewise that correct notions on the matter may become more prevalent. It is our 
desire here to take up a few subjects on which time or money are absolutely and 
frequently wasted, and to show how both of these may be economized. The 
instances we shall select will be taken mainly for the commonness of their 
occurrence, and hence nothing like a systematic arrangement of them will be 
attempted. They will simply be brought forward, whether now or at a future 
period, quite at random, as they happen to present themselves. 
Fastening at once on one of the most prominent things which cause superfluous 
expense in the culture of flowers, we would speak of that tendency, which is almost 
universal, in growing such numbers of plants in houses that might be much better 
managed in frames or pits. There is scarcely a dwarf plant of all the tribes 
generally seen in greenhouses, and even in stoves, that would not flourish better in 
a frame or pit, from whence it might be removed to the house or drawing-room 
while blooming. That the expense of erecting houses, heating them, and keeping 
them in order, is very much greater than that of frames or pits, will be immediately 
obvious ; and when, likewise, the plants themselves are benefited by such a 
practice, the economy of the thing is rendered doubly conspicuous. 
If it be objected to the use of pits and frames that they cannot be conveniently 
examined by persons interested in the plants, such an objection might be removed 
by keeping them in a part of the garden which is maintained in as neat, trim, and 
ornamental a state as any of the other portions ; for it is not at all necessary that 
