CONSERVATORIES. 



381 



We are aware that this has been some with the happiest effects. The diffi- 

 attempted in several instances; and in culty of combining horticultural conve- 



Fig. 514. 



niences and graceful arrangement has 

 been happily overcome, even where the 

 houses were upon no very extensive scale. 



As plant structures may now be ex- 

 pected to become more numerous, as 

 well as more capacious, we hope that 

 attention will be directed to this matter. 

 Our Continental neighbours have at- 

 tempted something, here and there, in 

 the way of giving pictorial effect to the 

 interior of their conservatories, while they 

 tacitly adhere to a very formal style of 

 laying out the grounds around them. We, 

 on the other hand, continue to adopt 

 quite an opposite practice. All, with us, 

 is grace, freedom, and expansion without ; 

 while within, as was remarked by an 

 observing Frenchman, "we huddle our 

 plants together upon a stage or shelf, 

 just as if our greenhouse was a shop, and 

 the plants were objects placed for sale 

 upon the counters." 



At Chatsworth, Sion, Kew, Leigh Park, 

 and some other places, both the useful 

 and the beautiful have been carried out 

 to a considerable extent— and upon a 

 smaller scale at Poles, in a house designed 

 by Mr Glendinning, at Mr Dillwyn Lle- 

 wellyn's in Wales, and more recently at 

 Mr C. Walner's at Haddesdon. 



Mr Llewellyns stove conservatory is 



internally arranged so as to represent a 

 tropical forest scene on a small scale — the 

 idea having been suggested to him on 

 reading the graphic description given by 

 Schomburg of the falls of the Berbice 

 and Essequibo. In this house rockwork 

 is introduced ; a fall of water heated to a 

 proper temperature is made to dash over 

 the rocks and to fall into a pool which 

 occupies the middle of the stove, forming 

 a tiny aquarium and small island of rock- 

 work, which, like that forming the cas- 

 cade, is covered with ferns, orchids, lyco- 

 podiums, &c. Innumerable seedling ferns 

 spring up, amongst which many species 

 of orchids grow in all their native luxu- 

 riance. Many species are cultivated on 

 the rocks, attached to blocks of wood or 

 placed in baskets suspended from the 

 roof; and all are growing in that wild 

 yet beautiful confusion in which they are 

 found in their native habitats. Nor is 

 this picturesque effect all that is gained 

 by this mode of arrangement — the plants 

 are individually placed in the conditions 

 the most natural to them in a strange 

 land, and under the control of man. 



Conservatory and greenhouse floors 

 should always be laid with polished 

 Arbroath, Caithness, Yorkshire, or Port- 

 land pavement, in large pieces, and 



