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JOUENAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
of dull stuffy ones ; and though, perhaps, we do not season the wood now- 
adays so well as our grandfathers did before we use it for building, still 
it gnswers well enough for a time, and we progress so quickly that what 
is to-day up to date may in thirty years' time be quite obsolete, so we need 
not build glass houses for our posterity. 
A marked feature, attributable to the improvements in glass houses, 
has been the great multiplication of the kinds of plants grown in them ; 
Orchids, for instance. At the commencement of this century the places 
where these royal plants were cultivated could be counted on the fingers 
of one hand, and now every year millions are imported and sold. Market 
growers have houses full of each variety, and many of quite the most 
beautiful are to be had at a price paid by our fathers for bedding 
plants. The stimulus given to the growth of all choice exotics, as Crotons, 
Dracaenas, Palms, . and all the many beautiful tropical plants, can be 
traced to the same cause. Nor has the advantage of these improvements 
been only to the benefit of the wealthy, for the universal extension of glass 
houses has had the supremely beneficial effect of bringing many real 
luxuries within the reach of the poorer classes ; for example, Grapes, 
which years ago were sold at 10s. to 15s. a lb., and can now be had at a 
tenth of that price, and that both early and late in the season. 
We have in quite recent years called nature in to our aid in another 
very opposite form to hot water ; 1 mean the refrigerating process, 
whereby the growth of vegetation is arrested ; and the gardener has now 
only to pass the plant from the refrigerator to the forcing pit and " Ah, 
presto !" it is in bloom ; be it Lily of the Valley in summer, or Liliums 
in February, it is all the same. 
Gaeden Literatuke. 
I think I shall not be accused of belittling my forefathers when I say 
that at the commencement of this century very few practical working 
gardeners were noted as scholars, and no doubt, speaking generally, they 
were very backward in regard to book learning. Of course they had the 
Green Book of Nature " continually open before them, and with this 
they were mostly content ; but now what a greater privilege is ours — with 
science to help us to unravel the difficult problems, and the army of most 
instructive works specially devoted to the furtherance of our craft. And 
apart from the scientific writings on Horticulture, a pleasing feature of 
progress is evident in the blending of Horticulture with Literature 
generally — an evidence this that amateurs are more keenly interested, and 
take a livelier share in the pleasures of this most delightful of all human 
pursuits. And the Horticultural Press, what a boon it has conferred on 
millions during the past half-century ! From very humble beginnings it 
has grown until now it is a power in the land, and in the pages of the 
weekly journals we are brought into touch with the minds of some of the 
most distinguished men in all lines of thought. 
Speaking on this subject the Dean of Piochester said th.e other day: — 
"I welcome the sentimental element which has been introduced into the 
works on gardening, that element which appeals to the intellect and to 
the imagination. I have known so many young persons, anxious for 
information about the garden, who have been deterred by the dulness and 
