126 



THE GREEN-HOUSEL 



extraordinary effects, in fact, only become such by 

 being beyond the reach of ordinary rules. 



The third common rule in placing plants on a stage 

 is, to adjust their heights so accurately as to make 

 them dress off from the floor to the top of the back 

 wall in one even surface of verdure, like a shorn hedge. 

 This produces a striking effect at the first glance, but 

 is unfavourable to a prolonged interest, by a more 

 detailed examination of whatever species the collec- 

 tion may be composed ; only their tops are to be seen, 

 and no flowers but what issue from the points of the 

 shoots. What we would recommend is, to make the 

 sloping surface much more irregular ; by which 

 means the eye of the spectator would examine the 

 sides of many of the plants as well as their tops, and 

 the plants themselves would receive more benefit 

 from the light and air. Any mode in which plants 

 can be placed on a stage has a tendency to draw them 

 up to slender forms, naked below ; but when they are 

 crowded, and so nicely adjusted to an even slope as 

 is commonly aimed at, the deformity is greatly ag- 

 gravated. This evil is beginning to be felt by the 

 most eminent exotic gardeners, who now place their 

 plants much thinner than formerly, and so adjusted 

 in regard to size, that the direct rays of the sun, 

 in many cases, repose on the earth in the pots. 

 The plants in some collections are often so well 

 clothed with foliage from the pot upwards, that almost 

 any one of them taken at random, and placed on a 

 pedestal, would form a fine single object. This, 



