220 THE TATARS AND GARDENS OF PAIUS. [Chap. XV. 



of its tout ensciiiWe, and less of the rarity of the plants and 

 flowers." 



To any person with a knowledge of what the beauty of vegetation 

 really is, there can he no doubt of the correctness of these views. 

 The rule therefore in the conservatory or winter-garden should be 

 to use plants of fine foliage or stately habit. Plant them in beds or 

 borders ; grow them in pots or boxes ; the means, size, and require- 

 ments of the place must determine on what scale the thing may 

 be carried out. In some degree the effect desired may be produced 

 in the smallest greenhouse. In planting out, select things that 

 continue graceful during the whole course of their lives. Do not 

 plant subjects which, like Acacias, run up to the roof rapidly and 

 only bloom for a week or two in spring, presenting no attraction 

 for the rest of the year. A great many greenhouse plants grow 

 like these, but if we plant out a Palm like one of the hardier 

 Fan-palms, or a plant like the New Zealand Flax or the superb 

 Musa Ensete, they are in perfection at all seasons. Every 

 conservatory should possess, in proportion to its size, a certain 

 number of green and graceful plants, or those distinguished by 

 some peculiar beauty of habit, which are ready at all times for 

 fresh combinations, and look as well in mid-winter as in June, 

 Without these we cannot succeed in the successful arrangement 

 of a conservatory at all seasons without great expense, or even 

 with it. What are flowers unless set in the graceful green 

 among which we find them nestling in a wild state ? By the 

 selection of a great number of things which flower profusely — 

 80 profusely as to hide the leaves in many instances, the cultivator 

 has often contrived to conceal leaf-beauty. Nature is bountiful in 

 the production of leaves, and in the widest spread of Heath over a 

 mountain, in the densest mass of Bluebells in a wood, or in any 

 natural display of bloom whatever, we find the mass toned down 

 by pointed leaves, and in the case of the spreading Heather by 

 a fringe of Polypody, or even the cushion of mountain-moss. 

 Everywhere Nature sets her flowers in clouds of refreshing 

 verdure, and they err who merely cultivate dense flowering 

 subjects, and do not take care to relieve them with others 

 possessed of grace, and beauty of form. The continental plan 

 of divesting the interior of the conservatory of all formality is 

 well wortliy of imitation by us. Usually an attempt to create 



