230 
ECONOMY IN FLORICULTURE. 
months, is that deficiency of ripeness in the shoots of plants, and that want of 
hardihood, which attention to their summer and autumnal growth has failed to 
supply. In the first place, house plants are allowed to begin growing too early in 
the spring. The first burst of warm sunshine, even if it come early in February, 
is permitted to act upon them with full force, and they consequently commence 
expending their young developments before the natural warmth of the season has 
become sufficiently confirmed to continue those developments in a healthy condi- 
tion. The remedy for this is by no means difficult. If, on the casual occurrence 
of such externally genial weather at an unsuitable season, the houses were all 
thrown open, and the temperature reduced to the lowest possible degree, there 
would be no immediate effect on the plants, and their energies would remain latent 
till a more propitious time ; when, on being at length unfolded, they would exhibit 
a high amount of vigour. It is this vigour — this strength of constitution and 
habit — which constitutes the real safeguard against cold, and the true means of 
economizing heat. 
The second reason why heat has to be uselessly expended in winter is, 
that plants are kept too cold through the spring and early summer months. 
In April, May, June, and the beginning of July — the period when every appliance 
which could at all promote their growth and maturation, should be brought to 
bear upon them — they are nearly everywhere exposed to as much dry air as can 
well be admitted, and the very circumstances which would be most congenial and 
proper, repressed with a care and an assiduity worthy of a better system. Thus, 
when heat and a close atmosphere are really needed, and when they can be had by 
Nature's aid, they are discarded as much as practicable, and furnished, by 
expensive artificial means, at a period when they are hardly at all wanted, and are 
actually productive of harm. So inconsistent is a great proportion of our culti- 
vators ! 
That plan for the spring and summer management of plants in houses, which 
best consults the habits and health of those plants, and which makes them of 
themselves economizers of fuel in winter, is the one which, profiting by what 
Nature teaches, and by the assistance she spontaneously yields as soon as vegetation 
develops its flowers, keeps them close and warm at that period, thus helping them 
to expand their energies freely, and to lay in stores for future action. Having also, 
in this way, brought their growth to perfection in point of size and strength, a 
continuance of the same means is provided for, to take them through the first of 
the autumn months, and mature and harden the growth already formed. Six 
weeks or two months of subsequent exposure, either entire or partial, according to 
the nature of the plant, will then finish that maturation, and confer a degree of 
hardihood, which will withstand a degree of cold scarcely above freezing, and even, 
in many cases, three or four degrees of frost itself ; such cold being, moreover, so 
far from doing them harm, that it is the most friendly influence they can 
receive, because it retains them in a state of rest. 
