ECONOMY IN FLORICULTURE. 
183 
manner of necessity for doing it in a house ; and a frame or pit would be altogether 
more suitable as well as inexpensive. The atmosphere of a pit or frame can be 
much better regulated, as regards moisture, than that of a house ; and this is a 
most important matter in propagation. Bottom-heat, too, can be more conveniently 
and cheaply given or maintained ; and it is much easier to shade a frame than a 
house. 
In respect to forcing, frames might not, perhaps, be quite so convenient as 
houses in the depth of winter ; but a low pit, partly sunk into the ground, with a 
path in it just broad enough and far enough from the glass to admit the attendant, 
would be far preferable to a house in every point of view as regards culture, besides 
not costing nearly so much to put up or to heat. Farther on in the spring, frames 
supplied with a dung-heat from beneath or by linings, — though a pit such as we 
have spoken of might be heated in the same manner, — would be more appropriate 
and economical. 
In following out our economical principles, however, we would go considerably 
beyond what has hitherto been suggested, and cultivate a large portion of what are 
termed greenhouse plants in the open border during summer, keeping them, or a 
quantity of young stock raised from them, wholly in frames through the winter. 
We are conscious that this system is a good deal practised in modern flower- 
gardening ; but we are alluding to the extension of this plan, and to the adoption 
of something of another character. 
When a plant is capable of blooming well in the open borders, it loses much 
of its attractions for the greenhouse, which should then be filled with something of 
a more tender description, unless the former is much superior if kept in it. But 
when the opposite of this last occurs, and a species flourishes and blossoms best out 
of doors, it should invariably be grown there, and not introduced to the house — 
provided its place there can be otherwise supplied. How many greenhouse or 
half-greenhouse plants there are, besides those already used in flower-gardens, 
which would realize this supposition, and succeed better in an uncovered border 
through the summer, needs not be stated. A considerable portion of them, how- 
ever, do not grow rapidly enough, or arrive at maturity sufficiently soon to admit 
of their being planted out and abandoned every year; and these we would grow 
constantly in pots, plunging the latter over the rim every summer in the open 
border. The disadvantages of exposing greenhouse plants in summer would not 
be experienced here, since the sun could not act so injuriously on their roots, and 
they would be nearly as well off as if they were quite freed from the pots. To 
prevent them from being injured by the suddenness of their removal to the open 
air each spring, they might be gradually hardened in the frames by leaving these 
open in the day some time before plunging them out. They could be taken up 
again in the autumn, and put back in the frames. 
By some such a procedure as this, there are few of the summer-flowering 
greenhouse plants, except such as are very fragile and delicate, or have peculiarly 
