ECONOMY IN FLORICULTURE. 
255 
score ; for it would be easy so to arrange the pots below such a shelf, that the run 
of water avoided both them and the plants. And, in relation to the other question, 
there are positions in houses in which a shelf might be hung, without casting the 
slightest shade on the plants below it during winter. Such is the centre of the 
house, close to the roof, in a span-roofed structure ; and such, also, is the back part 
of a lean-to house. 
In a span-roofed erection, a shelf of at least two feet broad might be suspended 
along the middle, with the greatest propriety, through the winter months : and 
here would be another means of housing a large extra quantity of the smaller sorts 
of plants. Against or near the back of a lean-to erection, likewise, there might be 
placed a shelf of similar breadth, which would, like the other, hold a considerable 
quantity of young stock. 
What makes the employment of such shelves all the more desirable is their 
extreme adaptation to the wants of the plants which would be placed on them. 
Nothing is more beneficial to plants in the winter than proximity to the glass, 
and a dry, airy situation. On such shelves, these conditions would be supplied in 
a perfection which could not otherwise be realized. 
To those persons who have very little spare house-room, especially in winter, 
and who naturally wish to keep up as extensive a collection as they can, it is 
believed that the hints now offered will be of some use, in aiding them to accom- 
plish their purpose with a comparatively small expenditure. Lest, however, by 
appearing to favour the views of those who would desire extensive collections 
without a due regard to variety and genuine ornament, we should suffer our 
remarks to be mistaken, we shall now offer a few observations on the economical 
bearings of this question. 
Cultivators who imagine that they add to the effect of their houses by filling 
them, at all times, with the greatest possible quantity of plants, in a comparatively 
inferior state, are most seriously in error. The true economy is, as we at first 
showed, that which takes in the ends attained, and not that which merely com- 
passes seemingly great objects. A house, containing a hundred beautiful and 
well-grown specimens, is of much more value than the same structure filled with 
three hundred in a deformed or badly cultivated state. And hence, collections 
should be composed of select and choice kinds, finely cultivated, instead of a more 
numerous and promiscuous assemblage. 
It is probably one of the most important matters in all the range of economy, 
as respects plant-houses, to occupy them with none but decidedly good and showy 
plants. A very few insignificant things suffice to stamp a character of inferiority 
on a collection which is, generally, of the highest order. They detract immensely 
from its richness and its finish ; giving it at once an air of meanness, of hetero- 
geneousness, and of imperfection. 
Beyond this, however, if we take the expense of the thing into account, it is of 
moment that every plant should effect its object, and tell upon the general 
