92 THE HOT-HOUSE. [Jak. 
one years, being introduced by Mr. Watts, gardener at the apothe- 
caries' garden at Chelsea, near London, who in the year 1684, 
contrived flues under his green-house, the latter being much 
posterior, not having been brought into repute till about the year 
1720, when Mr. Le Cour, of Leyden. in Holland, discovered its 
utility for the propagation of the pine-apple, which had never before 
been brought to good perfection in Europe. Before the use of 
bark-beds was introduced, all stoves or hot-houses were worked by 
fire-heat only; hence they obtained the name of stoves. 
These stove departments are generally constructed in an oblong 
manner, ranging in a straight line east and west, with the glass 
front and roof fully exposed to the south sun; and in dimensions may 
be from fifteen or twenty, to fifty or a hundred feet long, by twelve 
or fourteen, to sixteen feet wide in the clear, and commonly from 
ten to fourteen feet high in the back wall, by five or six in front, in- 
cluding the wall and upright glasses together, and furnished with 
flues round the inside of the front and end walls, and in several re- 
turns in the back wall for fires; and with the whole roof overhead, 
sloping to the south, entirely of glass-work, supported on proper 
cross-bearers. 
Stoves of much more capacious dimensions, are frequently erect- 
ed by persons of fortune and curiosity, for the cultivation of the 
taller growing kinds of exotics, which shall be taken due notice 
of, after the less expensive and more generally used kinds are des- 
cribed. 
The Bark -Stove. 
The Bark-Stove is so called, as being furnished with an internal 
pit for a bark-bed, as well as with flues for fire-heat, and is the 
most universally used, as being the most eligible for the general 
culture of all kinds of the tenderest exotics, as well as for forcing 
several sorts of hardy plants, flowers and fruits to early perfection: 
the bark-bed being designed to effect a constant moderate moist 
heat all the year round, and the flues used occasionally for fire heat 
in winter, or during cold weather, to produce such an additional 
warmth in the internal air, as may be requisite at that season; the 
bark-bed being formed, as hereafter directed, is productive of an 
uniform moderate growing heat, of long duration, peculiarly adapt- 
ed for the reception and growth of the most tender exotics, which 
require to be kept constantly plunged in their pots in it; such as 
pine-apple, Sec. in order to enjoy the benefit of that durable, moist 
bottom heat about their roots, peculiar to bark beds only, whose 
heat also evaporates and warms the air of the stove at all times, 
that even the plants on the surrounding shelves are comforted 
by its influence; so that with the aid of fire-heat in winter, regu- 
lated by a well graduated botanical thermometer, placed constantly 
in the stove distant from the fire place, and as much in the shade 
as possible, there are hardly any exotics from the hottest regions 
of the world, either woody, herbaceous, or succulent, but may be 
