110 
GARDEN ARCHITECTURE. 
unnecessary — as tliey are in most instances — both hideous and prejudicial ; need- 
lessly strong supports to stages are highly inelegant ; small squares of glass, with 
their numberless laps, detract greatly from the beauty of a house, and cause incon- 
ceivable damage to plants by the drippings they occasion ; an extensive ascending 
series of wooden stages is, to our eyes, extremely ill adapted for ornament and for 
use ; and finally, the absence of facilities for producing a current of air across the 
house, on a level with the plants, by ventilation, is grossly impolitic. 
It requires no ingenuity to account for the way in which so decidedly tasteless a 
style of building as that first depicted in this article should have arisen. Without 
question, it has its origin in the gardening profession. Gardeners being in former 
times but seldom devoted to literary pursuits, and bent solely on the mastery of 
the different practical departments of their art, had neither inclination nor leisure 
for a study of the elegant arts ; and architecture, though most closely connected 
with their pursuit in various ways, has been, and is now, too generally considered 
foreign to a gardener's education. The result is, that not one in ten knows anything 
of the principles of architectural taste ; and thus, when called upon to construct 
houses, we see them providing for what they are aware, by experience, is essential 
to their success as cultivators, but altogether forgetting, or quite accidentally 
following, the rules which taste dictates. To gardeners, then, are, in almost every 
case, clearly attributable the violations of established proprieties which so forcibly 
strike the intelligent tourist in his examination of British plant-houses. 
On the other hand, the gloomy, unsuitable structures we occasionally meet 
with, which betoken a more or less knowledge of architecture, but no acquaint- 
ance with vegetable wants, are as plainly to be imputed to the professed architect. 
He, like the gardener, imbued deeply with the love of his profession, and impressed 
chiefly with the desire to produce an object which will do honour to his own 
conclusively professional skill and talent, leans to an opposite, but fully as erroneous 
an extreme. 
To obviate the perpetuation of similar faults, we have a hint to offer to pro- 
prietors and to gardeners. To gentlemen anxious for increasing their floricultural 
establishment by the addition of new or the enlargement of old erections, we would 
suggest the necessity of consulting, first the gardener, as to the eligibility of the 
spot fixed upon, the aspect, kind of roof most suitable, &c., and where his ability 
is competent to the task, confiding the preparation of a design entirely to him, 
merely submitting it to the judgment of an architect in the case of any unsatisfied 
scruples existing in the breast of the proprietor as to the fitness of certain parts. 
For smaller buildings, every gentleman is himself qualified to determine the merits 
of a design ; and the assistance of an architect will be needed only when a work of 
great magnitude is to be undertaken, or when doubts arise concerning any par- 
ticular feature. 
On the gardener, we wish vividly to impress the desirability of mastering 
the elements of architecture. No art is, as far as relates to its outlines, less 
