232 
ECONOMY IN FLORICULTURE- 
eyes of the base as soon as they are fairly developed, is evidently the safest, and 
wisest, and most economical course. 
From inefficient drainage, or an accidental stoppage in the flow of water 
through a pot in which any plant is growing, there may be a stagnation of water 
in that pot, and thus, by a multiplicity of such cases, another occasion for artificial 
heat will arise. This must be avoided by going over the whole collection care- 
fully before the beginning of winter, and re-potting whatever specimens may be so 
situated. 
Other contributors of moisture — and therefore of a demand for additional heat 
— may be the materials within a house. The soil beneath a stage, for example, 
may get saturated with moisture during summer and autumn, and be constantly 
giving this off to the air throughout the winter. The sashes, too, may be leaky, 
and so admit moisture through the roof. There may be tanks or vases filled with 
water, and exposed to the atmosphere of the house, towards keeping which moist 
they will be perpetually contributing. All these things, and others of a similar 
nature, are very small and uninfluential when considered separately. But they all 
have an effect : and when several are acting together, that effect will quite turn 
the scale sufficiently to render fire-heat indispensable. Such being their tendency, 
they should of course be looked to, and their influence cut off by taking away its 
cause. 
Thus have we specified some of the particulars which, in cultivation, determine 
the degree of heat requisite to be kept in houses through the winter. We seek, 
above all things, here to impress on the grower of exotics that, to do away with 
fire-heat, except in extreme cases, he must pursue a preparatory system throughout 
the entire year. It is not keeping the plants dry in the autumn alone — nor 
simply a carefulness to mature their growth in summer — nor merely the regu- 
lation of their supply of fluids at any or all seasons — nor always having the 
houses dry during winter — nor, in short, any one or two of these or other 
agencies, however potent, which will realize the desired end. It must be by a 
concurrent attention to them all^ and a conjoint working out of the wJiole. 
In addition to the methods of producing a saving in fuel already mentioned, 
there are one or two further suggestions which we desire to record. The leading 
one is, that the use of fire-heat propagates itself, and is thus doubly pernicious. 
In other language, when fires have once been employed, they become, from that 
occasion, increasedly needful ; and the subsequent frequency of their use renders 
that use always still more frequent. It will be a rule of sound economy, then, to 
go without them as much and as long as possible. Provided no frost enters a 
house, cold will only harden and improve most plants ; and a thick or close 
covering to a roof, applied during the first w^inter frosts, will sometimes save a 
whole collection of plants from acquiring that tenderness which results from the 
stimulus of fire-heat, and from which only the warmth of spring will again restore 
them. 
