78 KOYAL WATER-LILY. 



gardening. They are, perhaps, more the result of ne- 

 cessity and convenience than of taste. The high price 

 of materials required for plant-houses, and other cir- 

 cumstances, render it expedient, where the mere cul- 

 tivation of exotics as individual objects, without re- 

 gard to artistic combination and arrangement, is 

 the object in view, to prefer that structure as the 

 best which offers the greatest capabilities for plant 

 accommodation at the lowest proportional cost. The 

 time was, when this principle was held equally ap- 

 plicable to the open-air garden, and when number 

 of species and varieties was considered the infallible 

 criterion by which to judge of the excellence of a 

 collection. Since then, however, landscape-garden- 

 ing has given to horticulture a more noble aspect, 

 and placed it in a wider field. Since it is now uni- 

 versally acknowledged that Nature is as necessarily 

 the cultivator's guide in the laying out of his garden 

 and the arrangement of his ornamental plants, as she 

 is his guide in the cultivation of the latter, there is 

 great reason to hope that in like manner the claims 

 of Nature may by and by be recognised in the for- 

 mation of structures for the culture of exotics. 



It has been shown by Professor Lindley, in the 

 " Gardeners' Chronicle," how easily a fair specimen 

 of tropical scenery could be got up beneath glass, 

 without decreasing the plant-accommodation to any 

 great extent. We venture to suggest, that a struc- 

 ture raised for the culture of the Victoria, instead 



