ECONOMY IN FLORICULTURE. 
229 
house. Nor do they but barely exist in such a place. They actually flourish much 
better there than they would do in a stove. 
No one, then, who can command a pit or frame capable of being kept close 
occasionally, and of being securely preserved from frost in winter, need forego the 
pleasure of cultivating a few fine Orchidacese on account of the expense they create 
in the purchase of fuel, for, except so much as all greenhouse plants demand, the 
particular sorts to which we refer do not require artificial heat ; and, for the con- 
venience of viewing them while in flower, they might easily be suspended in a 
drawing-room, or introduced in ornamental wicker or other wooden baskets, raised 
on pedestals. 
It would be worth some little effort to describe minutely how Orchidaceee 
could be managed in this way, and point out the sorts which would bear that 
treatment ; but, as the matter is rather foreign to our present topic, or would carry 
us too much into detail, we shall only now hint at the plan, as one likely to econo- 
mize fire-heat. 
In a far more comprehensive sense would we now wish to treat of the wasteful 
consumption of fuel in cultivating exotic plants. There is hardly a greenhouse or 
stove throughout the kingdom, which is not unnecessarily heated at some period. 
And as this superfluous temperature tells most injuriously on those plants, an 
additional motive is thus supplied for withholding it. 
Into the process by which plants are rendered sufferers beneath an immoderate 
or improper power of artificial heat, we have so often entered, that it cannot be 
desirable to repeat the particulars. They are, under the influence of undue heat, 
induced to grow too fast, or at an unfit season ; and, being materially 
weakened thereby, fulfil all their highest functions imperfectly. 
But the worst feature in the ordinary system of administering an unnatural 
temperature is, that it is given precisely at that time when plants require to be 
left to themselves, and to the enjoyment of a state of torpidity. They consequently 
expend the matter which they had secreted and stored up for another season's pro- 
duction, in a worse than useless extension of their shoots ; and hence, every 
unnecessary degree of heat in winter, trenches on the inflorescence and robust 
growth of the following summer. 
At the foundation, however, of all this waste and this detriment, is an evil in 
general treatment, in the removal of which must of course lie the destruction of the 
practice we condemn. It is of no use urging on cultivators that fire-heat is both 
wasteful and prejudicial in most of the instances where it is employed, unless they 
are likewise informed how they are to proceed in order to dispense with it. With- 
out a suitable preparation of the plants, they must use more of it than would 
otherwise be wanted. And we will therefore here go to the root of the whole 
question, and lay bare those radical defects in plant management generally, which 
lead to the breach of economy now beneath our notice. 
What principally causes fires to be set in operation so much during the winter 
