418 
LANDSCAPE GARDENING. 
The Conservatory or the Green-House is an elegant and 
delightful appendage to the villa or mansion, when there is 
a taste for plants among the different members of a family. 
Those who have not enjoyed it, can hardly imagine the 
pleasure afforded by a well -chosen collection of exotic plants, 
which, amid the genial warmth of an artificial climate, con- 
tinue to put forth their lovely blossoms, and exhale their 
delicious perfumes, when all out of door nature is chill and 
desolate. The many hours of pleasant and healthy exercise 
and recreation afforded to the ladies of a family, where they 
take an interest themselves in the growth and vigour of the 
plants, are certainly no trifling considerations where the 
country residence is the place of habitation throughout the 
whole year. Often during the inclemency of our winter and 
spring months, there are days when either the excessive cold, 
or the disagreeable state of the weather, prevents in a great 
measure many persons, and especially females, from taking 
exercise in the open air. To such, the conservatory would 
be an almost endless source of enjoyment and amusement ; 
and if they are true amateurs, of active exertion also. The 
constant changes which daily growth and development bring 
about in vegetable forms, the interest we feel in the opening 
of a favourite cluster of buds, or the progress of the thrifty 
and luxuriant shoots of a rare plant, are such as serve most 
effectually to prevent an occupation of this nature from ever 
becoming monotonous, or ennuyante. 
The difference between the green-house and conserva- 
tory is, that in the former, the plants are all kept in pots and 
arranged on stages, both to meet the eye agreeably, and for 
more convenient growth ; while in the conservatory , the 
plants are grown in a bed or border of soil precisely as in 
the open air. 
