14 ON ARRANGING PLANTS IN CONSERVATORIES. 
as are merely of large proportions, unless, as is usually the case, they contain similar 
facilities for planting out the specimens. 
With this restricted sense of the name, we would include likewise some slight 
peculiarity of treatment which should further distinguish them from greenhouses. 
It will be conceded by most cultivators that the farther we depart from the natural 
routine of management, the more necessary does it become to adopt artificial means 
of obviating injury from that course ; and, on the other hand, as we advance 
towards the system of Nature in our modes of treatment, the lesser points of 
attention which were essential in the former state, may be disregarded with perfect 
impunity. 
Thus, in the conservatories of which we speak, it will not only be safe, but 
desirable, that a smaller amount of air should be introduced ; the atmosphere being 
retained, during summer, in a warmer and moister condition than can ever be 
allowed in greenhouses. That such a change would benefit the plants, every 
experienced practitioner will affirm. But in greenhouses the great difficulty lies 
in effecting it, without, at the same time, carrying it to an extreme, and realizing 
the peculiarities of a stove. 
In greenhouses, as usually constructed, the power of filling the air with 
moisture, even to a modified degree, is exceedingly circumscribed, and entails the 
constant exertion of the attendant ; there being no surface capable of at once holding 
and exhaling sufficient vapour throughout the whole day. Wanting this, it is 
impossible to augment the heat, or allow it to rise materially, and not cause some 
of the plants to suffer from extreme aridity, even supposing the most careful and 
continuous efforts to be made for supplying water ; while it is almost equally 
impracticable to increase, by contrivances for transmitting additional light through 
the roof, the action of this powerful element on the plants, since, under the more 
energetic influence of light, there is a still greater demand for fluid to make good 
the extra evaporation it produces. 
These advantages, however, would not be felt in conservatories of the class we are 
describing ; and the alteration in their general management which we would suggest, 
is that they be kept rather closer than greenhouses in summer, by ventilating them 
less ; and that, by liberally watering the beds of earth each morning, and again 
occasionally during the day, if needful, the atmosphere be always maintained in a 
state intermediate between dryness and saturation, never approaching too closely to 
the aridity of the greenhouse, nor to the humidity of a damp stove. 
The superiority of conservatory culture over that of greenhouse treatment in 
pots, must be strongly manifest ; at least, where the specimens are not wished to 
be removable. More vigorous and healthy growth is one of the highest benefits 
derivable from the plan. This is due to the greater quantity of light which can be 
brought to act on them, for plants whose roots are unconfined (with the exception 
of a few sorts) are invariably improved by light. Another circumstance which 
contributes mainly to the result, is the absence of all the vicissitudes to which plants 
