THE PLANT STOVE. 



garden with any approach to being regarded as of high-class character may be said 

 to be complete without a house or houses for the cultivation of tropical or h cat- 

 loving plants. These structures are termed hot-houses, or, more commonly, stoves. 

 "With their aid many of the most beautiful flowering and fine-foliaged plants in the 

 world can be admirably cultivated. Much can be done with a single house, but the 

 culture of tropical plants is greatly simplified when it is possible to group those 

 requiring the most heat in a house or compartment by themselves, or apart from 

 others not needing equally high temperatures — a fact that ought not to be lost sight 

 of when new stoves are designed and constructed. 



Forms of Structures. 

 No particular form of structure may be considered as being absolutely necessary, 

 any more than in the case of greenhouses. The same class of houses answer for both, 

 but the heating arrangements must be very different. Plant stoves and forcing houses 

 may be either lean-to, three-quarter span, or span-roofed, according to circumstances. 

 When they form part of a long range against a wall, they are either lean-to or three- 

 quarter spans. 



The span-roof is the best form of structure that can be chosen. In order to bring 

 out the true character of stove-plants, whether they be grown for the beauty of their 

 foliage or flowers, or the two combined, abundance of light as well as heat and moisture 

 must reach them. "When span-roofed houses run, as they ought, from the north to the 

 south, the occupants derive full benefit from the light, without actually suffering from 

 an extreme of sun heat at any particular time of the year. The interior arrangements of 

 span-roofed houses can be made to lend themselves to the effective arrangement of the 

 various plants grown in them, while at the same time the great majority may be easily 

 reached, and attended to by persons in charge — an advantage which only those who 

 have been responsible for the health of plants arranged on wide beds or inconvenient 

 stagings can fully appreciate. 



A width of 18 feet is suitable for a span-roofed house. If much wider, considerably 



