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No. XLII. Observations on the Cultivation of Stove Plants. 

 In a Letter to the Secretary. By Sir Edward Poore, 

 Bart. F. H. S. 



Read July 17, 1828. 



Sir, 



H aving always been very much dissatisfied with the appear- 

 ance those plants commonly called Stove Plants usually 

 present when grown in pots, I determined to try the expe- 

 riment of forming a Conservatory in which they might be 

 turned out to grow at liberty, and where I might hope to see 

 finer and more luxuriant specimens of my favourites, than I 

 had hitherto been able to produce. For this purpose I built 

 a Plant-House 32 feet in length, 20 in width, and 13 feet 

 6 inches high, with a span roof. A pit occupies the whole of 

 the house, excepting a front and back walk, and the space 

 necessary for the flues, of which there are two ; there is also 

 a cistern at one end. The pit was made about four feet 

 deep, well drained and filled with a compost of fresh turf and 

 loam, peat earth, sand and a stratum of leaves at the bottom ; 

 these were all used in their recent state and merely roughly 

 chopped up, and mixed together ; I found the leaves heat 

 pretty strongly through the mass at first, but this after a time 

 ceased. Having completed this, in January last, I proceeded 

 to turn out nearly all my Stove Plants, and I will now detail 

 the progress they have since made. 

 Fiats elastica, was when turned out about six feet high, it is 



