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ON SEPARATE STRUCTURES FOR DIFFERENT PLANTS. 
Some years have elapsed since we published a few remarks on the propriety 
of cultivating plants which differ in their necessities, in separate structures. The 
remarks then offered related solely to plant- houses, and the chief topic discussed 
was the various amount of solar influence to which different plants, from their par- 
ticular organisation, can bear to be exposed. Besides this, however, there are 
many other points upon which a departure from a course of sameness is advisable. 
We cannot close our eyes to the great improvement that has arisen latterly, in 
ihe growth of plants ; and much of it may be rightly attributed to the attention 
which the adoption of distinct systems, according severally with the nature of 
different plants, has received. Much more, however, yet remains to be done ; and 
now that a barrier which had long opposed the march of improvement in this 
point, has been broken down, by the recent abolition of the duty on glass, a field 
opens before us fertile in the means of progression, at a reasonable cost. 
Because a thing is cheap, is no reason for indulging immoderately in it — we 
mean in defiance of utility and reasonable economy. Viewing the matter before 
us, then, in this light, we do not recommend the erection of many stoves and 
greenhouses, although there is nothing objectionable to such a course, if they can 
be properly upheld. Our object is to show the more humble amateur how the 
advantages of the system may be had at a trifling expense ; and it must be 
remembered, that it is not only the first erection of glass-houses that proves expen- 
sive — there is attention, labour, and fuel, to provide for their support. 
During the time that plants are in flower, most of those from temperate loca- 
lities are at home together in a greenhouse, and there is then an advantage in 
mixing them ; indeed, it is only by a miscellaneous collection of specimens in 
bloom that the interest of a house can be preserved. There is generally too much 
monotony in a house filled exclusively with one family, or even one natural order ; 
a few only contribute extensive variation of form and character. Considering that 
a similar treatment accords with the greater part whilst they are blooming, and 
that the disagreements are greatest at other periods, we would rather employ the 
houses principally for the purposes of show, keeping them constantly supplied 
with flowers ; and provide a quantity of pits and frames, where the plants might 
be kept at other times, and separated into classes requiring analogous treatment, 
each class occupying a separate compartment. 
The same practice applies to plants from warmer countries ; so that with the 
aid of pits and frames, a stove, a greenhouse, and an intermediate house, a vast 
number and variety of the most beautiful exotics may be successfully cultivated ; 
and a constant succession of the gayest may be mingled together, without the 
detraction from their effect, which the intermixture of specimens in an unsightly 
state always produces. 
VOL. XII. NO. CXXXIX. Y 
