57 
THE CONSERVATORY* 
Oue attention has, of late, been directed pretty extensively to the subject of 
" forcing " or propagation-houses ; and to the most efficient distribution of heat in 
them, consistent with a true but liberal economy. We have been kept on the qui 
vive by an hypothesis lately started by the advocates of a new, or rather almost 
solitary mode of excitement, called the Polmaise ; a system which every attempt 
at elucidation involves in still greater perplexity. We shall always be happy 
to welcome real improvement ; but as we are quite sure that a certain quantity of 
burning fuel can evolve only a given definite volume of heat, although the distribu- 
tion of that volume may be infinitely varied, it becomes extremely difficult to believe 
that one solitary, centrally-placed stove — were it even heated to whiteness — could, 
by any possibility, radiate and disperse its heat equably throughout a house of very 
moderate dimensions. It is the praise of hot water that, provided the flow and 
return be regular, the temperature at any part of an erection, however long or broad 
it may be, will approach to something like a true mean. While, therefore, we 
cannot understand the principle recommended, or feel the truth of the explanations 
laid before the public, it will be prudent and liberal to withhold any strong opinion. 
At present, indeed, the subject would be inadmissible, as the erection specified 
in the above title could not admit of any experimental attempt to introduce the 
machinery used at Polmaise. 
The Conservatory is pre-eminent as the most elegant and useful of all other 
erections for the cultivation of exotics. It is noble, and truly adapted to a great and 
first-rate place; but, on the other hand, it has difficulties peculiar to itself, and 
which demand the utmost skill and attention of a superior gardener. The conser- 
vatory is designed to receive plants which, being grown in suitable soils deposited in 
prepared borders, unrestricted by pots, boxes, or tubs, are enabled to expand their 
roots, and to produce great developments of members above the surface. Such is 
the object of the pure conservatory; and therefore plants are introduced into it 
which, by attaining a size approaching to that of their natural growth, display 
beauties of form, foliage, and bloom, that are inadequately represented by the 
dwarfed specimens cultivated in the ordinary greenhouses, &c. 
But although, in the strict sense of the term, this erection is confined to the 
introduction of large plants, great freedom is assumed by gardeners in general ; and 
therefore, while we observe a central bed for the reception of tall-growing shrubs, or 
even trees, we perceive a great variety of potted plants standing on the paved floors, 
and others, of still more limited size, arranged upon trellises. Thus the garniture 
of the conservatory is usually of a miscellaneous character, and hence one of the 
causes of that heterogeneous mode of form and structure which is of common 
occurrence. 
VOL. XIII. — NO. CXLVII. i 
