During the winter season, or from December 1. to May 1., more than one labourer in addition to the head gardener will be unnecessary. The second labourer may at that season, therefore, be allowed to retain his house, and seek for labour elsewhere; and the saving thus made, it is presumed, would be a contribution towards the purchase, from some of the Derby nurserymen or florists, of all the flowers or other plants that may become necessary to fill the vases from May till October. Unless some arrangement of this sort be made, it will be impossible to do justice to the plan of exhibiting plants in the vases; because the flower-garden, if made a source of supply, would be injured in appearance; and to have a reserve garden, with a green-house or pit, would involve much more expense than hiring the plants from a nurseryman, and would be far from attaining the object in view so effectually. On the supposition that there were fifty vases, there would then be fifty different kinds of named flowers or green-house plants in them every day during the summer; and supposing that these kinds were changed once a week, and the same kind not repeated more than once in the same season, there would then have been upwards of 500 different kinds of handsome plants, with their names attached, exhibited to the public in the course of a single year. To give an idea of what these plants might be, I shall suppose them to consist of 200 showy hardy and tender annuals, 100 dwarf dahlias, 100 choice herbaceous plants, 100 geraniums, 100 Australian plants, 50 heaths, and 50 miscellaneous green-house plants, including fuchsias, cacti, aloes, &c. Plants to this extent, in the neighbourhood of London, would be lent for a week each at an average of 1s. a pot, so that, for the season, the total expense might be 50l. Even half this sum would be productive of considerable effect and instruction.
