236 FACTS, HINTS, AND EXPERIMENTS ON THE MANAGEMENT OF 
From the preceding remarks, and also from suggestions which have been thrown 
out from time to time in this Magazine, it will be seen how exceedingly difficult it is 
to draw a line of demarcation between stove plants and greenhouse plants, and in 
our artificial treatment, how egregiously we err in supposing that because a plant 
comes from a temperate climate, it will not bear a considerable amount of heat, or 
because another plant may come from a tropical country, it will not submit without 
injury, under certain circumstances, to a considerably lower temperature than what 
it was accustomed to in its native climate. We are quite aware that constitutionally 
a plant cannot be changed, and there is not an instance on record of any plants 
being able to resist uninjured a temperature one degree lower than what it would 
the day it was introduced into the country. True, we have treated plants as tender 
which subsequently been found to be quite hardy, and by unnatural treatment, such 
as stinting and starving, we have rendered certain plants able to resist for a time an 
absence of heat (or amount of cold), which would have been certain death to their 
more free-growing compeers ; yet this has only been a result of bad management, 
and therefore cannot be regarded as a proof of the change of the natural constitution 
of the plants. 
There cannot be a doubt but that many plants which we generally subjected to 
greenhouse treatment, would, especially in the winter season, be much better in a 
warmer atmosphere, as for instance, those which we have enumerated in these 
remarks, and many more which might be mentioned ; while of those plants which 
are commonly regarded as stove, many would, during their dormant season (the 
season after their bloom is set), be materially benefitted by a temperature somewhat 
lower than we generally give them. During the last winter the writer kept a plant 
of Stanhopea tigrina, a stove Orchid, in a greenhouse temperature, and not caring 
much about it, in the summer, at the time of turning the other greenhouse plants out 
for this season, it was placed in the open air, where it continued to grow in a satis- 
factory manner, making both healthy roots and leaves, and in July it threw down 
a strong flower-scape, which would have produced five flowers, had not a frost, on 
the 2nd of September, cut short its further progress. We think the time is not 
very distant when a certain number of the most hardy Orchids will be wintered in 
the warm end of the greenhouse, and will decorate that house with their singular 
and beautiful flowers at a time when its other occupants are in the open air. 
It therefore appears pretty clear, that to ensure first-class cultivation of both 
greenhouse and stove plants, the great desideratum is an intermediate house, which 
may be kept at a temperature suitable to the more tender greenhouse plants and 
which at the same time will not be too cold for many of the more hardy stove plants. 
The minimum temperature of this house by fire heat, would be from 45° to 50°, 
through the winter, while in the day time it might be allowed to rise ten degrees 
higher, giving plenty of warm air at all times, and keeping the atmosphere rather 
moist than otherwise. Here a great quantity of very valuable plants would be at 
home, and here too, many plants which generally as greenhouse plants are found 
