MESSRS. ROLLIXSDn's HOUSE. 



331 



breadth for a passage round it. Upon this pit or bed the larger and 

 taller plants are set. On each side of the house is a platform, nearly four 

 feet wide, occupied with smaller specimens, and under these platforms 

 the hot-water pipes are placed. From the rafters are suspended hundreds 

 of plants, some attached to pieces of wood, others in ^vire or wicker 

 baskets, some in pots mossed over, and others having only a little moss 

 tied round them. 



The majority are planted in pots, some of which are of very large size, 

 and are intended for specimens, but those for sale vary in size from the 

 size known as small forty-eights to that of sixteens. The house, notwith- 

 standing its great size, is completely filled] with Orchideae, some of which 

 are in flower at every period of the year. 



The house of the Messrs. EoUinson, at Tooting, is rather less than the 

 last, but it is the intention of the spirited and highly respectable pro- 

 prietors to extend it considerably ; and as difficulties of a local nature 

 occur to prevent its extension longitudinally, it is to be by adding 'to it 

 transversely, which, in our opinion, vrill be an advantage rather than 

 otherwise. 



The length of this house is seventy feet, the breadth fifteen, and the 

 height at the centre ten feet two inches. The side walls are five feet 

 high, from whence the roof springs. 



This house, also, is of the span-roofed form, and is fitted up in a verv- 

 neat and commodious manner. A bed or platform occupies the centre, 

 five feet six inches wide, and 

 on each side are tables over 

 the hot- water pipes, two feet 

 four inches broad, upon which 

 the plants are set. In the 

 middle of the house is a cis- 

 tern of water, from which, by 

 the aid of Dr. Scott's patent 

 garden pump, as shown in the 

 opposite sketch, the whole 

 house, or any part of it, can 

 be watered in a few minutes. 

 At the end farthest from that 

 at which the entrance is situ- 

 ated, and over where the 

 boiler for the hot-water ap- 

 paratus is placed, is a raised platform, upon which some splendid 



