GREEN-HOUSE AND CONSERVATORY. 



987 



enable the cultivator to have them taken up when any repair 

 or cleaning is necessary in the flues, or for any examination of 

 the steam or hot-water pipes. 



For the greater convenience of watering, it will be proper to 

 .ave a capacious and water-tight tank sunk under the border, 

 or other convenient part of the house, into which all the 

 water that collects upon the roof, or upon any portion of the 

 adjoining roofs, may be conveyed, and taken up as wanted by 

 a neat pump, which may be either placed in a niche in the 

 back wall, or so constructed as to take off by the surface of 

 the floor when not in use. 



FORMING THE BORDERS. 



Opinions are at variance on the depth that conservatory 

 borders should be made, and it may be generally inferred that 

 they are made too deep to answer any good purpose. How- 

 ever, as houses of this description are erected and planted for 

 different purposes, the depth of the borders should be governed 

 by the design in view. 



For houses of the most capacious dimensions, and in which 

 plants are to be allowed to attain their greatest height and 

 size, borders of three feet of mould, independently of draining, 

 will be amply sufficient ; and for houses of ordinary sizes, 

 when fine specimens of flowering plants are the object, bor- 

 ders of two feet, or two feet and a half will be quite sufficient, 

 as the plants will flower better when not too luxuriant. For 

 houses where a constant succession of flowering plants is re- 

 quired, and which would be difficult to attain without all, or 

 at least a great portion of the plants being portable, and 

 brought to perfection in an auxiliary house, and only admitted 

 into the conservatory when coming into flower, and removed 

 when they become sickly or past flowering ; in such houses the 

 borders need not be deeper than sufficient in which to plunge 

 the pots or tubs in which they grow, so as to give the whole the 

 appearance of being planted out. Little on this system has 

 been done in this country, in what may be called the change- 

 able conservatory, but it is evident that much might be done 

 with good effect. 



