INTERIOR ARRANGEMENTS. 



compliance with the principle of plant-culture, or with the 

 method of interior arrangement which we have here recom- 

 mended, is equally impossible. In the latter case, the greater 

 portion of the plant-house must necessarily be formed by the 

 walls of the building, and the shadow of its elevated parts will 

 be thrown upon the plant-house for at least one half the day. 

 This is nearly as injurious as if the portions thus shaded 

 were opaque. The only way of obviating the evils consequent 

 upon its position, is to give every possible inch of light to the 

 one, to enable it to counterbalance the shade which it must bear 

 from the other. 



When plants are planted in beds in the conservatory, they 

 require to be large specimens, otherwise they have a meagre 

 appearance, and must be a great distance from the roof, and 

 this is one of the greatest difficulties the gardener has to contend 

 with. It must be borne in mind that fine specimens do not 

 consist in plants that reach from the bed to the glass, with naked 

 stems, and only a few branches at the top, which is invariably 

 the result of lofty roofs and dark walls. 



We have already shown, in the preceding section, the conse- 

 quence of high-roofed houses, and the difficulty of managing 

 them in a manner fitted for the successful cultivation of plants ; 

 and if high-domed or right-lined roofs be improper in houses 

 where the plants are elevated on shelves and stages, they are 

 much more so where the plants are set in the beds without pots, 

 as the distance from the light renders it impossible for them to 

 grow bushy and branching below. These, when included within 

 the common-place curb of a square, or a parallelogram, or an 

 oval, or circle, which are little better, (except when sparingly 

 introduced, and only where they are described by the natural 

 curves of the contiguous figures,) invariably produce an effect 

 so common-place and uninteresting, as to fail in exciting the 

 faintest emotions of pleasure, or novelty, or interest, in one out 

 of a hundred individuals of taste and judgment. 



