THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



169 



and there is perhaps no garden similarly situated and of similar dimen- 

 sions iu which there is a better selection of interesting and beautiful 

 objects. But this is nothing more than sliould be, considering my respon- 

 sibilities as an adviser and a doctrinaire, and there is a limit to my 

 skill as to all other human efforts, for I cannot make much of tea roses 

 ■without the help of glass. This time last year therefore I determined to 

 make an end of the vexation of living iu the midst of flowers and having 

 so few of these most beautiful of all the rose family, and the question of 

 course arose, what sort of house should be built for them. In any case 

 I said the house must be a span, and because of the limited space at dis- 

 posal, it must be iu miniatui'e. I am not a freeholder, and therefore there 

 was the additional necessity to have it legally portable, so that at any 

 time it could be carried away and deposited unhurt wherever my lot 

 might be next cast. As we are being fast built in, and have the promise 

 of a railway to skirt the lower end of the garden, all my proceedings are 

 shaped with a view some day to removal. I saw plainly that Sir Joseph 

 Paxton's patent was the thing for me to patronize, and by means of two 

 letters to Mr. Hereman, to settle the size and price of the house, all pre- 

 liminaries were settled, and before the postman who took the second 

 letter ordering the house to be supplied could have fairly rested from his 

 journey, there stood at the front gate a waggon, piled to the height of 

 the first-floor windows with bran span lights, all glazed and painted, 

 with the doors, ventilators, bolts, screws, everything down to tenpenny 

 nails, so that with the aid of a couple of carpenters the house was put up, 

 in less time and with about a fiftieth part of the labour required to print 

 this number of the Floral "World. 



ffliijirfijji 



PAXTONIAIf HOSE-HOUSE AT STOKE NEWINGIOJf. 



So much by way of history. The description may be similarly brief. 

 The house is a span, with very sharp pitch, glass to the ground; the 

 lights ride in the gutter, the gutter rides on wooden chairs, the chairs 

 rest on concrete piers ; it is as substantial as a rock, and as portable as a 

 bedstead. The lights bolt together at the ridge, as if fitted together by 

 hinges, so that they can be drawn out at any time to make a house one-thirr 

 wider and of alow pitch ; the ends are fixed under the styles of the roof 

 sashes by means of small iron plates, the doors hang as other doors do, and 

 the ridge is covered with a ridge-board, as in any other span-roofed house. 

 The view of the structure will make all this plain, and serve also as a 

 further instalment of pictures from my garden. 



