STRUCTURES ADAPTED TO PARTICULAR PURPOSES. 83 



the object is to grow the plants in beds, or masses, irregularly 

 placed on the level of the floor, which is decidedly an improve- 

 ment upon the old method, of having a few long-legged and 

 branchless specimens sticking their heads up to the glass, where 

 their leaves and flowers are far above the common axis of vision, 

 and where nothing is seen below but the monotonous bed, and 

 the bare stems of the plants that are growing in it, compelling 

 the gardener, at all hazard of propriety, and in violation of 

 every principle of taste, as well as of his own judgment, to stick 

 in the commonest plants, whatever they are, among the bare 

 stems of the others, to fill up the unsightly blanks and vacancies 

 thus occasioned in the beds. 



While on this subject, we will just briefly remark, that nothing 

 has so much tended to improve the culture of the trees and 

 shrubs, generally grown in houses of glass, as the improvement 

 that has taken place in the mode of construction. All practical 

 men are agreed on the point, that, to grow plants well, the 

 house must be low in the roof, and light as well as air must be 

 admitted freely to every part of the plant, from the ground to 

 the glass. They must also be situated in such a way, regarding 

 their lower parts, that the light may not be obstructed, for how- 

 ever powerful, and perhaps sometimes injurious, the fierce 

 rays of the mid-day sun may be in mid-summer, yet its perma- 

 nent obstruction is far more so. It is easier to obviate scorching 

 in the one case, than etiolation in the other. 



8 





