Cultivation of Botany in Erigland. 437 



extent, the beautiful productions with which it is stocked, or 

 the judgement, taste, and hberaUty with which it is conducted, 

 are most worthy of admiration. With regard to the latter 

 point, we will venture to say, that much as we have travelled 

 and seen, we have met with no stoves, belonging to prince, 

 king, or emperor, whicli can compare with those of Messrs. 

 Loddiges, at Hackney, for the magnificence, convenience and 

 elegance of their plan, and the value of their contents. Let 

 my reader imagine a dome, eighty feet long and forty feet 

 high, built in the form of a paraboloid, purely of glass, kept 

 together by a delicate but strong frame of small iron ribs. This 

 dome is heated by steam, when the rays of the sun are found 

 insufficient to warm it. In ascending to the upper part of it 

 by an elegant stage thirty feet high, we thence enjoy a scene 

 entirely novel to a native of Europe : the tropical plants of 

 both hemispheres, the eastern and the western, are stretched 

 below at our feet; and the prospect is similar to what miglit 

 be presented on a hill clothed with tropical verdiue, through 

 an opening in which we might look at the scenery beyond. A 

 slight touch with one finger suffices to bring down from the 

 light roof of this dome a fine shower of rain, which sprinkles 

 all the exotic vegetation among which you walk. To this 

 gentle and careful manner of watering the plants, (the nearest 

 mode of imitating nature,) may be ascribed the rich luxuriance 

 of the inmates of this stove. Besides this house, there are 

 some twenty others, fi-oni one hundred and filly to three hun- 

 dred feet long, and greenhouses of various dimensions; all si- 

 tuated in two large gardens, containing about one hundred 

 acres, divided by a wall, in which plantations are scattered. 

 One of the houhes, built after the newest plan with convex 

 windows, is stocked with nearly four hundred kinds of Pleath. 

 I am spared the task of enumerating the rarities of this gar- 

 den, by the 13th edition of its Catalogue, published in 1823; 

 and the ))retty work called the Botanical Cabinet, which ap- 

 pears regularly. — As we were walking in the garden, through 

 ranges of Camellia, liliododendron, Azalea, &c. accompanied 

 by one of the sons of Mr. Loddiges, we took the liberty of 

 asking him wliat might be the value of the plants in the whole 

 collection, supposing that every one in the Catalogue were sold 

 according to its price as tliere marked ? " About 200,000/." 

 was the reply : that is 2,800,000 florins. The cultivation of 

 gardens cannot therefore be so paltry an occupation as some 

 individuals at the University of Landshut would liave us to 

 believe, who, while they will spend GOOO florins in a beer cel- 

 lar, yet allow the botanical garden there, which might .serve 

 as a nursery-grouml for the whole country, to fall to diicay in 



a manner 



