200 



THE MIXED GREENHOUSE. 



the upright bar on each side, passes close under it, and indeed is screwed 

 to it, by which means the whole roof is tied together, and scope afforded 

 for the training of climbing plants to the bars. The stage, ^, is in the 

 middle of the house, allomng a footpath all round, and the heat is com- 

 municated by means of the flues c, which pass down the front and return 

 along the back. Shelves are fixed against the back wall d for holding 

 plants in a state of rest, that they may be kept dry, and a small shelf, c, is 

 also placed in front, immediately under the bottom of the rafters, for the 

 reception of small, young, or delicate plants, particularly during winter. 

 Over the front flue is a trellis-table, also for small plants and such as 

 require abundance of air and light. 



Many fantastic and badly arranged greenhouses have been erected, andy 

 as it would appear, for no other purpose than that of creating forms that 

 imagination only can approve of, and to have a house different from all 

 others, and too often contrary to both reason and good taste. Mcol, a 

 garden architect of some pretensions, appears to have understood the 

 rationale of building greenhouses upon very judicious principles. He 

 agrees with us that a house to stand detached from other buildings 

 should be of glass on all sides. " It may be a circular, oval, hexagonal, 

 octagonal, or with two straight sides and circular ends, which,'' he 

 thinks, the best form of any : the next best an octagon, whose sides 

 are not equal, but with two opposite longer sides, and six shorter sides> 

 In either of these last-mentioned forms, the stages and plants may,'^ 

 at least in his mind, " be more tastefully an-anged than in any other. 

 Granting either of these cases, the house should be about thirty-six or 

 forty feet long, eighteen or twenty feet wide, and ten, or at most twelve, 

 feet high, above a level line for its floor. The parapet aU round to be a 

 foot or fifteen inches high, and the upright glasses placed on it four, or 

 four and a half feet at most ; for it is important, for the sake of the finer 

 kinds of plants,, and in order to have aU kinds grow bushy, and flower 

 while young and small, to keep the roof glasses as low as possible, just 

 allowing suflicient head room for the tallest person when walking in the 

 alleys. The furnace and stock-hole may be placed at either end, or at 

 either side, as may be most convenient ; and they should be sunk under 

 ground and concealed. The flues to be constructed should run parallel to, 

 and be separated fi'om the parapet by a three-inch cavity; its surface 

 being level with the top of the parapet, and being cribtrellised for heaths^ 

 or other rare plants. A walk thirty or thirty- six inches broad to be con- 

 ducted all round next the flues, within which should be placed the stages 

 for the more common and the taller plants, being raised in the middle and 



