THE AMATEUR’S FLOWER GARDEN. 
41 
and destroying will suit those who have no glass, and it 
may suit many who have, because, by setting free labour, 
glass, fuel, and ground-rent from the production of bedding 
plants, the means may be found to grow pines, grapes, 
mushrooms, melons, the very noblest stove and greenhouse 
plants, and many grand conservatory plants which are quite 
unknown to those who find in geraniums and calceolarias 
the sole objects of horticultural care, and the only worthy 
subjects of horticultural enthusiasm. It is quite a question 
whether thousands who grow their own bedding plants do 
not pay more for them than those who purchase annually. 
However, it is our business to help both parties, and we close 
this paragraph by remarking that, without a sufficiency of 
glass, it is next to impossible to carry out the bedding system 
with home-grown plants, and a regular routine of cultivation 
must be followed to enable the planter, in the month of May, 
to fill the parterre according to the arrangement predeter¬ 
mined on. It happens, fortunately, that a few simple directions 
on cultivation will apply to nearly all the bedders enumerated 
above, and these may very properly be presented in the next 
chapter. 
It remains now, to complete this section, that a few 
remarks of a general kind should be offered on the distribu¬ 
tion, and proportions, and relations of the colours employed 
in the furnishing of the parterre. The reader will not need 
to be informed that a tasteful display can only be obtained 
by a judicious employment of the materials at the command 
of the planter. They may be sufficient for the production of the 
most artistic effects, and yet may be made subservient to mere 
vulgarity, or to a meaningless expression of weak harmony, 
unless they are proportioned and disposed with skill. Let us, 
therefore, consider the whole case in a comprehensive manner, 
though a few of our remarks may be but amplifications of 
points already succinctly stated. 
All our general views of "Nature afford us hints of the 
laws by which the disposition of colours should be regulated. 
But particular views are still more instructive to the artist. 
Let us behold the meadows in the month of May, and rejoice 
in the golden glow of buttercup blossoms with which they 
are overspread. What does the sight consist of ? You will 
be disposed to answer, perhaps, that it consists of a green 
groundwork covered with dottings of yellow. And you are 
