92 THE HOT-HOUSE. [JAN. 



especially under the back walk : over which broad planks may be laid, 

 resting on loose bricks, for the convenience of walking during the 

 \vinter season ; from these the heat will be equally diffused through 

 the whole house, and to produce which, half the fuel will not be 

 necessary that must be consumed in keeping the house warm by a 

 single range round the front and ends only. 



In the erection of stoves it will not be necessary to have the ends 

 glazed more than half the width of the house, or at most, to within 

 eighteen inches of the doors ; leaving that much for piers between 

 the doors and the upright end sashes. ...the remainder may be car- 

 ried up with brick as high as the roof-lights. 



In stoves that are so long as to require two fires, each with its 

 respective ranges of flues, it will be proper to make a glass partition 

 in tne middle, and to have two tan-pits, that there may be two dif- 

 ferent degrees of heat for plants from different countries ; and were 

 a range of stoves built all in one, and divided by glass partitions, at 

 least half the width of the house, towards the front, it would be of 

 great advantage to the collection, because they may have different 

 degrees of heat according to their different natures, and likewise the 

 air in each division may be shifted, by sliding the glasses of the par- 

 titions, or by opening the glass door which should be made between 

 each division, for the more easy passage from one to the other. 



In the warmest of these stoves or divisions, should be placed the 

 most tender exotic trees and plants. These being natives of very 

 warm countries, should be plunged in the bark -bed, and over the 

 flues may be shelves on which to place the various species of Cac- 

 tus's, Euphorbiums, Mesembryanthmeums, and other very tender 

 succulent plants, which require to be kept dry in winter. 



As in this stove are placed the plants of the hottest parts of the 

 East and West Indies, the heat should be kept up equal to that 

 marked Ananas upon the botanical thermometers, and should never 

 be suffered to be more than eight or ten degrees cooler at most, nor 

 should the spirit be raised above ten degrees higher in the thermo- 

 meter during the winter season, both which extremes will be equally 

 injurious to the plants. 



The roofs of some stoves are so made, that the glasses do not 

 slide either up or down, which is an evil of great magnitude ; for 

 where the sun is so powerful in the months of April and May, as it 

 is in every part of the United States, the superabundance of heat 

 collected in the house on very hot days, cannot be discharged by the 

 doors and sliding upright-sashes in front, which forces the plants 

 into an extreme state of vegetation, and renders them unfit to bear 

 the open air towards the latter end of May, when otherwise the 

 greater number of them might be brought out with safety, without 

 receiving such a check by the transition, as many cannot recover 

 during the summer, s.nd causing many more to appear much less 

 beautiful than they otherwise would, were they gradually inured to 

 the open air in the hot-house before their being brought out, by 

 .occasionally sliding open the roof as \vell as the front-glasses, and 

 never letting the heat arise in the house to too high a degree. 

 Those destined to remain in the bark-bed, during summer, such 



