26 DESIGN. 



breadth of tie United States; and the chief reason why we see 

 horticultural structures erected so numerously in this country, 

 in violation of the first principles of plant culture, is undoubt- 

 edly due to the same cause. The conservatory is generally left 

 to the uncontrolled management of the architect, who, of course, 

 makes this structure to correspond with the rest of the building, 

 without giving the slightest consideration to the vegetable beings 

 that are to grow in it. If we consider this matter in its dif- 

 ferent bearings, giving to professional architects the justice 

 which is due them, it would be somewhat unreasonable to 

 expect them to plan conservatories otherwise. An architect is, 

 by education, taught to study and apply principles in his art, 

 w^hich, when carried into effect, as we sometimes see them in 

 the construction of plant-houses, are in direct opposition to those 

 laws which nature has laid down and determftied as essential 

 to the vigorous development of vegetable life. Can it be 

 expected, then, that an architect will tamely surrender the grand 

 principles of his art, — the antiquity of which is coeval with 

 Cheops, and which has been the boast and pride of the greatest 

 empires of the old world, — in meek submission before the yet 

 half-developed principles of vegetable physiology, or even to the 

 humble dictates of practical gardening ? To expect such a con- 

 cession would be tantamount to expecting an architect to build 

 dwelling-houses with drawing-rooms solely adapted for the 

 accommodation of plants, altogether irrespective of other pur- 

 poses to which drawing-rooms are generally applied. Hence, 

 we find the conservatory placed just where it is most subservi- 

 ent to the general design of the mansion, most frequently in a 

 corner or recess of the main building, having two or three sides 

 of solid opaque material ! To civil architecture, as far as 

 respects mechanical principles, or the laws of the strength and 

 durability of materials, they are certainly subject, in common 

 with every other species or description of edifice ; but in respect 

 to the principles of design and beauty, the foundation of which 

 we consider, in works of utility at least, to be " fitness for the 

 end in view," they are no more subject to the rules of civil archi- 

 tecture than is a ship or a fortress ; for those forms and combi- 

 nations of forms, and that composition of building, which is 



