10 Retrospective Vieio of the 



design, to the hands of a carpenter. Our builders have not 

 yet sufficient good taste, which can only be derived from 

 a study of the best books, to undertake this. An ar- 

 chitect should therefore be employed, and the additional 

 expense incurred, will never be regretted by any individual 

 who wishes to erect a liandsome building. 



Around Boston and on the Hudson river several cottages 

 and villas have been erected of great beauty. We shall at 

 a future time notice some of them at length. 



Garden Architecture. 



Great improvement in the construction of greenhouses 

 has lately been effected. Formerly it was thought that any 

 kind of a building which would protect the plants from 

 danger of frost, was amply sufficient for all purposes. But 

 the shed-like appearance of many of these structures, has 

 been an objection to their introduction to the grounds of a 

 neat garden. Span-roofed houses have in consequence been 

 erected, and by attention to their construction, they have 

 been made quite architectural in their character. Mr. Be- 

 car, of Brooklyn, N. Y., has a fine house erected in this 

 style, and there are several others in the vicinity of i\ew 

 York. But one of the most complete is the conservatory in 

 the nursery of Messrs. Hovey and Co., which is 84 feet 

 long, 22 wide, and 10 feet high in front. We intend soon to 

 give two or three drawings of it. A grape house, 200 feet 

 long with a span roof, and one of the most extensive in the 

 country, has been erected by Horace Gray, Esq.. at his 

 country residence at Newton. 



The heating of greenhouses, frames and pits, has attracted 

 a great deal of attention in England A great many plans 

 have been recommended as the most economical, but 

 most of them are no improvement upon the old modes 

 of brick flues or simple hot water pipes. The system now 

 stated to excel most others, both as regards first cost and 

 economy of fuel, with the most genial heat lor the plants, 

 is that of heating with water, circulating through brick 

 gutters, originally, we believe, introduced into England by 

 Mr. Corbett, about four years ago, and in connexion with 

 this plan, broad tanks, called Rendle's system. It is quite 

 singular that both of these modes were adopted by us long 

 before they were known in England. As early as 1S29 



