CHAPTER VIII. 



TROPICAL AND TEMPERATE HOUSES. 



|T has been previously stated that it is no 

 part of this book to give advice respect- 

 ing extensive works in any line of fern- 

 culture. The writer is not an architect ; nor does 

 he possess a large greenhouse or estate upon which 

 to lay out an extensive fern-garden. Again : a great 

 deal has been written upon such luxurious estab- 

 lishments, in English books and journals : for in 

 Great Britain the fern-mania has long had posses- 

 sion of cultivated and wealthy people ; and there, 

 too, the climate aids, instead of frustrating, the ef- 

 forts of fern-growers. In such periodicals as "The 

 Garden," "The Gardener's Chronicle," "Journal 

 of Horticulture," and "The Gardener's Magazine," 

 published in London, descriptions of fern-palaces 

 are frequently to be found ; sometimes accom- 

 panied by the architect's elevations and plans, and 

 notices of the more valuable plants which they 

 contain. In " Select Ferns," Mr. B. S. Williams 



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