THE STOVE. 



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of course loftier ; and as the plants in a stove are, or ought to be, 

 at all times seen to the gi-eatest advantage, they should stand on 

 a bed in the middle of the house, having a passage sufficiently 

 broad all round it. The accompanying plates represent the 

 elevation and ground-plan of one of the plant-stoves at Clare- 

 mont, the country-seat of H. R. H. Prince Leopold of Saxe- 

 Cobourg Saalfeld, in which are cultivated plants which do not 

 attain a great size, or such as it is desirable to have in flower 

 while in a young state. Such also are the stoves at Bury-Hill 

 and Bayswater, in which tropical plants have long been suc- 

 cessfully cultivated by their respective superintendents. In 

 those cases where the fancy of the proprietor leads him to 

 have large specimens of the more lofty growing kinds of plants, 

 such as palms, Musas, Sec, houses of more capacious dimen- 

 sions are required ; and on that head we may refer to the large 

 palm-stove of Messrs. Loddige, or the still more magnificent 

 tropical-house of Mrs. Beaumont, at Britton-Hall in York- 

 Bhire. The interior of the former is one of the greatest treats 

 the lover of plants can be indulged with in the vicinity of 

 London, and reflects the greatest credit on the very spirited 

 proprietors. The exterior, however, is deficient in taste and 

 elegance. The latter is an immense dome, and possesses all 

 that degree of elegance for which such houses are supposed to 

 be so eminently distinguished. The plants which enter into 

 such houses, are so exceedingly rapid in their growth, and attain 

 so enormous a bulk, that no house hitherto built in this country 

 has been found sufficiently large for them, in which they can 

 develope their true characters. Plant-stoves require the highest 

 degree of temperature of all other horticultural erections, and 

 consequently many opinions have been pronounced on the 

 means of producing ^lat temperature upon the best and most 

 economical principle. Steam-pipes, in conjunction with flues, 

 and sometimes by themselves, have been tried, and steam has 

 been applied under the bed upon which the plants stand ; 

 which, by passing through a stratum of coal-ashes, tan, or 

 similar matter, heated the atmosphere of the house, while at 

 the same time it rendered the bed upon which the plants either 

 stood on, or were plunged in, sufficiently warm. Formerly, as a 

 greater degree of bottom-hcat was used in the cultivation of tro- 



