216 HORTICULTURAL TOUR. 



feet belong to the stove last described, the narrowness of 

 which accounts for its length. The houses were already all 

 shut up for the night, although it was early in the afternoon, 

 the sun shining bright, and the temperature in the shade not 

 under 66° Fain*. The heat within must at this time have 

 been between 80° and 90°. That plants so treated should be 

 drawn up and weak, did not certainly surprise us ; we ra- 

 ther wondered that they looked so well as they did. Some 

 cultivators of tropical plants, remarking that, in the West 

 India Islands particularly, very cold nights succeed to the 

 hottest days, have proposed to imitate such a climate at 

 home, by closing the hot-house during the day, and throw- 

 ing it open at night. But here the plants are excluded 

 from air, not only while exposed to the burning rays of 

 the sun, rendered more intense by the glass covering, but 

 are carefully smothered up during the cool period of the 

 night. Mr Pfister raised several of the frames of the nar- 

 row stove, to enable us to see the plants. Calotropis pro- 

 cera seemed the most remarkable one now in flower. 



The greenhouse plants are numerous, and at this season 

 occupied a sheltered corner in the garden, where they are 

 placed very closely together, and arranged according to their 

 height ; the tallest farthest back, so as to present the appear- 

 ance of a great sloping bank of southern foliage. During 

 winter, many of these plants, for which there is not room in 

 the greenhouse, arc crowded into sunk pits, covered with 

 glass-frames. These pits are intended chiefly for winter 

 protection, when vegetation is dormant; plants left in 

 them at this genial season, seem, as it were, buried alive. 

 In ihis state, however, we observed several uncommon 

 plants, generally much drawn up and disfigured. The 

 lyater-lily leaved Fig-tree, Ficus nymphaeifolia, maybe 



