370 



PLANT-HOUSES. 



itself may require. This is unquestion- 

 ably essential to the growth and perfect 

 culture of what we are in the habit of 

 designating stove and greenhouse plants ; 

 and we do not at all understand why the 

 same principles should not be alike appli- 

 cable to forcing-houses, no matter for 

 what purpose they may be required. 



" It has often occurred to us that the 

 usual arrangement of such structures 

 greatly disfigured and injured the effect 

 which garden establishments would other- 

 wise produce. Instead of the customary 

 mode of placing a lofty sloping roof of 

 glass against the south side of an equally 

 lofty brick wall, with lean-to sheds on 

 the north, for the most part slovenly, 

 and always unpleasant as objects seen 

 within the garden — instead of arrange- 

 ments of this kind, why not construct 

 some of the various forms of span-roofed 

 houses, or a series of spans running north 

 and south along the centre of the garden, 

 with glass on all sides to within a foot or 

 so of the ground, and surrounded with 

 well-kept gravel walks 1 We believe the 

 time is not far distant when gardeners 

 will no more tolerate the existence, and 

 far less attempt to defend the necessity, 

 that any portion of a hothouse should 

 consist of opaque walls, than they would 

 attempt to eulogise the superior advan- 

 tages of a permanently clouded sky for 

 imparting high flavour to their fruit, or 

 ripeness and firmness of woody texture 

 to the buds and bearing wood of the 

 future year." 



The same authority is particularly 

 anxious to direct the attention of gardeners 

 to endeavour to " show their employers 

 the impropriety of spending large sums 

 of money in the erection of architectural 

 conservatories for the growth of plants : 

 such structures are proper places for the 

 display of sculpture and works of art, 

 but they have no other utility. A shell 

 of glass of the lightest and slightest 

 description, consistent with due regard 

 to strength, will afford the greatest enjoy- 

 ment to the family, because in such the 

 plants will thrive. A conservatory is 

 essentially a place of amusement for 

 females, and ought no more to be de- 

 tached from the mansion than the music- 

 room or the billiard-room. We should, 

 of course, equally with the architect, 

 object to join a mere shell of glass imme- 



diately upon the massive masonry of the 

 mansion, and would connect the one 

 with the other by means of a corridor 

 or covered-way of greater or less length, 

 according to the circumstances. Then, 

 instead of spending £5000 or £10,000 

 to cover a few square yards of ground 

 with a mass of expensive but useless 

 masonry, we would say, spend it in 

 a manner adapted only to the growth 

 of plants ; and on this principle £10,000 

 would cover an acre of ground, or any 

 quantity in the same proportion." 



We do not, however, go so far as 

 entirely to exclude architectural conser- 

 vatories : in many cases we prefer them, 

 the more especially when forming part of 

 the mansion ; but we would, in all such 

 cases, adapt them as nearly as possible 

 to the style of architecture in which 

 the house is built ; and we would furnish 

 them with trees or plants that would 

 prosper in them. The conservatory we 

 hold to be as much a place for showing 

 off plants already grown, or in bloom, 

 as a structure for their growth ; and we 

 would have houses for bringing them to 

 that state adapted to the purpose. We 

 also hold the conservatory to be a part 

 and portion of the mansion, and as neces- 

 sary an appendage to it as the picture 

 gallery, music-room, or billiard-room. It 

 may with great propriety be attached to 

 a lady's boudoir, and opening into it, 

 as is the case with Lord Ashburton's at 

 the Grange, where the conservatory forms 

 no small feature in the general elevation 

 of that splendid mansion, a chaste Grecian 

 building — while it is a house in which 

 plants have long been known to thrive to 

 admiration. 



Unfortunately, in writing upon any 

 subject, man is apt to be led away, to a 

 certain extent, by the train of thought 

 passing in his own mind at the moment, 

 without waiting to see whether all the 

 world is following in the same path. 

 Now, it appears to us that conservatories 

 ought to be looked upon in more lights 

 than one. No doubt a conservatory, 

 expressly got up for the cultivation 

 of plants alone, without regard to any 

 other object, should have all the light 

 possible; and such, we would say, should 

 be the conservatories in botanical estab- 

 lishments. But a private conservatory 

 may, without any breach of good taste, 



