JULY. 
143 
For a good many years I have made it a point for attainment to produce a 
given quantity of flower-garden plants by the simplest possible means consistent 
with the production of a first-rate article. I do not mean by this the many 
resorts and makeshifts which might be called into operation, and which, after 
a good deal of experience in that sort of thing, I have come to regard as most 
unsatisfactory, and the most expensive by far in the end. Here, as in every¬ 
thing else, depend upon it, what is worth doing at all is worth doing well; and 
in flower-gardening, as attempted in numerous instances at the present time, 
it would be a wise and satisfactory procedure if the area of flower gardens 
were much reduced, and the remainder better executed. This would be a 
great step towards rendering flower-gardening what it might be—one of the 
most delightful departments of a gardener’s duties, instead of that which heaps 
upon him an untold amount of drudgery. It would, moreover, cover the present 
style of flower-gardening from the many objections which some raise against 
it. That the season of full beauty could be nearly doubled in duration by 
means of differently managing the plants now in use is a fact which has been 
fully proved; and this, too, without more labour—by simply reducing the area 
to be planted, and which is perfectly consistent with an enhanced degree of 
pleasure and enjoyment; for it is a fact beyond all dispute that a few beds may 
be made far more exquisite and effective than ten times their number as we 
sometimes meet with them. 
And this is only one of the many advantages that would be gained by a 
different mode of procedure. It would relieve hothouses which have been 
erected expressly for other purposes from being turned into Pandora’s boxes. 
After having had a long spell at turning out thousands of plants from forcing- 
houses and hardening them off by almost every means that could be devised; 
and, on the other hand, after the experience of a better-ordered state of affairs, 
the fact has forced itself upon me most convincingly, that the makeshift system 
is by far the most expensive, fifty per cent, more laborious, and equally more 
unsatisfactory in results, than when erections are afforded for the purpose. In 
this, as in everything else, there is a vast amount of unfruitful mental and 
bodily wear and tear, mishaps, and disappointments, and, to a great extent, 
abortive results, when that which is aimed at is altogether out of proportion 
to the means at command. And in flower-gardening, as now practised, gar¬ 
deners themselves have plunged headlong, without adequate means, into an 
amount of labour from which, in many cases, they would be glad to retreat; 
and, after all, the splendour of the parterre is only of two or three months’ 
duration, while it might be extended to nearly double that period, if the means 
and extent were more in character and proportion. If ever flower-gardening 
is to be raised many steps above its present level some course of this sort must 
be insisted on, as well as some alteration of the general principles now observed 
botli in the character and arrangement of the plants. 
In the autumn propagation of all flower-garden plants, excepting Geraniums 
and Calceolarias, the object is simply to prepare enough of stock from which 
to propagate, in early spring, sufficient numbers to meet the requirements of 
the place. Spring-struck plants, as is well known, are much to be preferred to 
those struck in autumn and winter; and the labour connected with such 
numbers is confined in the one case to weeks, while in the other it is spread 
over months. 
Looking at cuttings, let us say of Verbenas, Heliotropes, Alyssum, &c., # 
before they are taken from the parent plants, there we find them in all the 
health and vigour attainable in a rich soil and under the influence of full sun 
and air. The end to be attained is not simply how to get these rooted and 
established as independent plants ; this could be effected in many ways. But 
