2 Greenhouse and Stove Plants. 
GREENHOUSE PLANTS, 
red spider. In such a house two four- 
inch pipes, flow and return, all round 
under the outside stages, will be required. 
For retarding purposes, such as keeping 
back a portion of the stock of many kinds 
of plants with a view to prolong the 
season of their flowering, a lean-to house 
facing northwards, with wall at back, is 
a structure that is very useful, and offers 
advantages that cannot be had with houses 
fully under the sun’s influence. Front 
lights and top ventilators should be pro- 
vided and made to work similarly to those 
advised for the greenhouse. 
Lieut.—In plant life one of the first 
essentials is light. Certainly there are 
many things that will exist for a time 
with an insufficiency of it, and, when 
completely at rest, some others will bear 
the complete exclusion of light; but where 
any activity in vegetable life exists, there 
light must be present in sufficient quanti- 
ties to supply the necessities of plants 
according to their individual requirements. 
All plants that require the protection of a 
glass covering, even with only the applica- 
tion of sufficient heat to exclude frost, 
exist under conditions more or less arti- 
ficial, and they become to some extent 
inured to the partial absence of some of 
the conditions existing when in a state of 
Nature ; but so far as we have been able 
to observe, under such conditions they 
require the presence of something to com- 
pensate them for the loss they suffer. For 
instance, any plant grown under glass 
cannot possibly receive nearly the amount 
of fresh air it enjoys in its native habi- 
tat. Air and light are the elements that 
strengthen and solidify the soft tender 
shoots and young immature leaves of grow- 
ing plants. As the first of these all-essential 
agents cannot be given in quantities equal 
to what the plants receive in a state of 
Nature, we must try to make up for its 
absence by giving them the greatest pos- 
sible amount of light. Any one who 
is at all doubtful as to light being in 
some measure able to compensate vegetable 
life for an insufficiency of air, may learn 
something by noticing plants of several 
varieties of common British Heath that 
will grow and luxuriate for years in an 
Orchid basket hung up within a few 
inches of the glass. Here all the condi- 
tions under which the plants exist naturally 
are changed, and had it not been for the 
amount of light they received they would 
have succumbed. We have long since 
come to the conclusion that the necessity 
for giving to that portion of a plant above 
the soil—its leaves and branches—the 
greatest possible amount of light is of as 
great importance as the necessary supply 
of water to its underground parts, the 
roots; and that in the class of plants 
under consideration a great number of 
failures are attributable, not only to the 
use of dark, unsuitable houses, but to 
the fact of the plants not being elevated 
sufliciently near the glass. 
Whilst on the subject of light it will be 
necessary to say a few words on the posi- 
tion in which plants require to be placed 
in the houses in which they are grown. 
Their general wellbeing depends much 
more upon this than the way in which 
they are frequently treated in this respect 
would lead us to suppose. We often see 
plants in even good light houses standing 
in such a position as would lead to the 
impression that the simple fact of their 
being under the protection of the house 
was thought sufficient. In conservatories, 
or houses that are principally kept gay 
by the temporary introduction of plants 
whilst in flower, the most effective arrange- 
ment must be considered, and the plants 
placed where and in such manner as will 
give the best general effect, and during the 
comparatively short time they occupy such 
structures, and the little growth that most 
plants make whilst flowering, if they are 
not too much crowded they will not re- 
ceive serious harm. It is in the houses in 
which the plants make their growth, where 
they are situated for the greater portion of 
the year, that it is necessary to so place 
them that they will receive all the light 
possible, by elevating them as near to the 
roof as they can be. This is even more 
important during the early stages of the 
plants’ existence than when they get 
larger, for very much of subsequent health 
depends upon the strength and vigour that 
a plant acquires during the early stages of 
its growth. Any one who is in the habit 
of seeing Covent Garden Market cannot 
fail to notice the profusion of flowers 
produced by comparatively small plants. 
If he has the opportunity of seeing these 
plants at home with the growers, he will 
see that through the whole course of their 
existence the one consideration above all 
others is, to keep them near the glass. 
Arranged in this way, whilst plants are 
small, they certainly have not so nice an 
effect in the houses they occupy, but their 
condition as to health and general appear- 
ance, when they get to something like the 
size they are required to be grown to, will 
fully compensate for this, and will be 
much more satisfactory than the study of 
the most effective arrangement in their 
early stages of growth. 
Arr.—The admission of air to green- 
