GEXERAL MANAGEMENT. 



353 



also greenhouse aquatics. The furnace and boiler might be placed under 

 the cistern, and the fire managed from without, by merely sinking 

 a space sufficient to admit of the operator when attending to the 

 fire ; this, at all other times, could be easily concealed, and thereby 

 a nuisance be avoided, which furnaces and hot-house fire-places cer- 

 tainly are. 



There are few examples of this kind in Britain : the only one we have 

 seen being that erected many years ago at White Knights, for the Duke 

 of Marlborough, by Todd, and described by him in his work on hot-house 

 architecture. That was, however, a very imperfect model. Cultivators 

 in general have grown their aquatics in pits, and in this way the late 

 Kent, of Clapton, was eminently successful ; but by far the majority con- 

 tent themselves by placing them in tubs of water, and setting them in 

 the plant stoves — most frequently in the part most remote from the glass, 

 and consequently the darkest : hence the few specimens of these plants 

 to be seen even in good collections, and the want of success in their cul- 

 tivation, so much complained of. No plants are more easily cultivated if 

 placed in a proper position in regard to hght and heat : these are the 

 two conditions upon which success depends, for the nature of the soil 

 they are grown in is, we think, of Uttle importance. 



;Many of the most beautiful aquatic plants may be very successfully 

 grown in large tubs or small cisterns, placed in a pit of the ordinary 

 description, where a regular Aquarium cannot be afforded ; and this pit 

 might be heated by dung linings, or still better by hot-water, introduced 

 from a boiler, which might be employed in heating several other similar 

 structures. ^Ir. Loudon has proposed a very simple and convenient cistern 

 for growing Nymphaeas and other low-growing aquatics, by elevating it 

 upon pillars in the open air, and when the season of forcing commences, 

 to be covered with a hot-bed frame of the same dimensions, and surrounded 

 by linings of hot dung. By this means any requhed degree of heat might 

 be produced during the flowering season : and if it were desired to 

 keep any of the plants in a growing state during wiuter, the hnings and 

 frame could be continued. If not, most of them, by being carefuUy pro- 

 tected from frost, would safely remain in a dormant state till spring. 



GENERAL MANAGEMENT OF AaUATIC PLANTS. 



The genera which chiefly claim admission into the Aquarium on account 

 of the beauty of their flowers, are the family NymphcBaj Limnocharis, 

 Menyanthus, Pontederia, Nelumhium, Aponogeton, Euryale^ &c., and as 

 a plant historically interesting, the Cyperus papyrus, and the rice plant, 



A A 



