LAYING-OUT OF THE BOTANIC GARDEN. 239 



singly or in pairs, for then they would be illuminated 

 nearly all round. "When we say detached, we do- not 

 mean scattered promiscuously throughout the garden — 

 that would be a worse fault than the other, and would 

 give rise to serious inconveniences in their manage- 

 ment. They may be detached in groups, as leading 

 objects of particular divisions of the garden. If a 

 general range is adopted, either from the limited extent 

 of the garden, or from the grounds being favorable to 

 the production of an imposing effect by the concentra- 

 tion of the plant-houses in some particular spot, the 

 range, for example, might be thrown into divisions of 

 lean-to or span-roofed houses, of greater or less extent, 

 placed at such distances as not to shade each other. 

 These might be made to abut against a wall running 

 east and west; and on this wall might be formed 

 glazed corridors between the divisions communicating 

 with the main structures, and uniting the whole into 

 one general range of ornamental glass. A number of 

 other arrangements, on similar principles, might be 

 suggested; we merely hint at them, to show that those 

 disjointed accumulations of plant-houses, set down 

 apparently at hap-hazard, and not unfrecjuently seen in 

 ill-arranged nurseries, are not at all necessarily incident 

 to the botanic garden, and ought therefore to be sedu- 

 lously avoided. Perhaps some of the faults of this 

 kind, to be found in better establishments, are to be 

 ascribed to the circumstance that the buildings in 

 question were after-thoughts. 



The next error to which it is needful to advert is the 

 too common practice of planting mixed belts of trees 

 along the exterior boundary walls. These are gen- 

 erally unnecessary ; for in a botanic garden there is 



