182 
ECONOMY IN FLORICULTURE. 
a frame ground have a slovenly, untidy, or displeasing appearance. But when it 
is further urged that frames can only be visited in favourable weather, we would 
reply that all the curious or flowering plants should be kept in the house, and only 
those out of bloom, whose aspect has little of interest at that time, retained in the 
frames. 
Modern opinions concerning the management of plant-houses are very difl^erent 
from those which were formerly current ; and as they do not arise from fashion, 
but true taste, they are doubtless more correct. These are that the houses about a 
place should be few, — especially the greenhouses, — and that these should be 
supplied from frames with plants in blossom, or those which are otherwise 
attractive. The plan is merely a carrying out of that adopted with flower-gardens, 
which is now so common that no one thinks of questioning its propriety. And 
assuredly, if it is desirable that a plot of ground in the open air be continually 
decorated with flowering objects, it is much more so to maintain a similar display 
in a house erected entirely for ornamental purposes. 
But the economy of using frames instead of houses to cultivate and prepare the 
plants required for the latter, would not be confined to their actual cost in building. 
This, although a large, would not be the only saving by such a plan. Since no 
paths would be requisite in pits or frames, the whole of the space covered by the 
glass might be appropriated to the plants. Nor is even this all. The frames 
could be heated, or cooled, or kept moist, with greater facility, and thus the plants 
in them would be more thoroughly beneath the control of the cultivator. They 
might likewise be far more cheaply supplied with artificial heat, when necessary, 
or shaded during summer, or covered to any extent in winter, to obviate the 
employment of fire-heat. The plants, too, could be more readily plunged in them, 
during summer, when bottom-heat is needed, or when their roots want protection 
from the fervour of the sun's rays. 
All the three features of economy which we set out with specifying, are, there- 
fore, compassed by the method under notice. It costs less money in the first 
instance, and less to keep it in order ; it occasions a less expenditure of time and 
labour, because any kind of treatment is easier given in frames than in houses ; and 
it greatly benefits the plants. Each of these conditions is, further, attained in an 
eminent degree. 
The system is particularly adapted for Heaths, Pelargoniums, flowering Cacti, 
those globular-headed Cacti that demand additional heat in summer, Calceolarias, 
dwarf greenhouse shrubs and herbaceous plants of every description, Gesneras, 
Gloxinias, Achimenes, bulbous plants, Mesembryanthemums, and most of the 
dwarfer inhabitants of the stove, especially those which delight in bottom-heat. 
To such an extent has the custom of growing plants in houses been pursued, 
that it is far from being an unusual thing to see propagation conducted in a house, 
and all sorts of forcing performed in the same kind of structure. Now, where 
propagation is done in the spring or summer, as it ought to be, there can be no 
