80 
THE COTTAGE GARDE NEK AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, November 10, 1857. 
regulated, should be kept flowing into the tank. The one we 
have described at Chats worth has four wheels, above each 
of which is a pipe for supplying cold water, by which means 
the heat of the water can be regulated or moderated down to 
any required temperature; and, besides this, the action of the 
wheels produces a motion on the surface of the water, •which, 
without this or some similar precaution, would probably soon 
become putrid. Gold and silver fish, also, it has been proved, 
are of great importance to the perfect development of the 
leaves, they devouring the numerous aphides and insects 
that often infest their under surfaces. Hundreds of these 
fishes, therefore, are annually placed in the tank here soon 
after planting. 
The introduction of the Limncea stagnalis, or water snail, 
has also been recommended, as it devours the slimy 
and mucous matter that always accumulates more or less 
in the tanks of tropical aquariums, and from our own ex¬ 
perience of their usefulness in a large reservoir, which con¬ 
tains some thousands, we are persuaded that their intro¬ 
duction in a sanitary point of view would be extremely 
beneficial. 
The average temperature of the tank is from 83° to 
85°. This, however, frequently rises during the day to 
90° without any ill effects. The air of the house may be said 
to vary from 80° to 90° or 95°, and we have even seen it at 
100°. This high temperature is amply counteracted, how¬ 
ever, by one of the most essential requisites to its well¬ 
being, that is, a good supply of fresh air; and this is most 
liberally provided for at Chatsworth, the large number of 
ventilators in the basement wall, together with those in the 
roof, supplying it almost ad libitum; and here a fact worthy 
of notice should not be omitted. It will be observed upon 
reference to plan No. 2 that the four four-inch pipes, a a, for 
heating the building are placed immediately fronting the 
ventilators in the basement wall, so that all the air admitted 
into the house from below must necessarily pass through, or 
come in contact with, these heated pipes, and therefore that 
great desideratum in ventilation, a circulation of warm air, is 
easily effected. This very important and highly necessary 
precaution should never be lost sight of by the architect in 
constructing horticultural buildings, too many of which, and 
even very modern ones, we regret to observe, are built and 
ventilated without the least provision being made for warm- | 
ing the air admitted into them by the ventilators, and with¬ 
out a proper circulation of this in some way or other no 
plants will flourish. Live they may; but when partially 
deprived of pure air they only linger out their lives in a 
pallid, enervated, and undeveloped state, ra'ore of a disgrace 
to an establishment than a decoration. And let the opponents 
of a more free circulation to tropical structures bear in mind 
that even the most sultry forests, swamps, and savannahs of 
the tropics abundantly afford to plant and animal life that 
which many a modern cultivator of exotics almost denies; for 
■ instance, nearly all our richest and most delicate Orchids in- 
i habit regions in which for nine months in the year Aquarius 
is in the ascendant, and almost unremitting rains prevail. 
"Who, then, among the pale, attenuated Orchid growers of 
the nineteenth century can have the ignorance or pre¬ 
sumption to assert that close confinement, in conjunction 
with next to no ventilation at all, is congenial to the growth 
of tropical plants? "What possible analogy can there be 
existing between the unwholesome, unrenewed, and stagnant 
air of some of our almost air-tight Orchid and other exotic 
plant houses when compared with that of the native habitats 
of their denizens? localities where, for more than two-thirds 
ot the year, unceasing rains produce a corresponding cir¬ 
culation of air, and evaporation from above, around, and 
below scarcely ever ceases; so that the difference between 
the atmosphere of a tropical country and the artificial one 
ot a tropical house is about as widely separated as midnight 
| from morning. And, furthermore, respecting a free cir¬ 
culation of air, let it be remarked by one of the' thousands 
who have learned, when deprived of its influence, to feel its 
value (and there have been those who have learned it too 
late), that the effect, at least upon animal life, of the heated 
and confined atmosphere of some of our tropical houses is, 
in point of fact, although slower in operation, yet still no 
less surer in effect than that of the pestilential exhalations 
I of the Campagna, or the still more putrid and noxious vapours 
that seize and paralyse the unwitting intruder within the 
precincts of the “ poisonous valley of Java.” But setting 
aside this unwholesome subject with respect to human 
health, we turn to what is generally considered to be of 
more paramount importance, namely, the health and vigour 
of plants in the atmosphere of one of those structures 
which some tropical growers seem to delight in assimilating 
as near as possible to that of the above “valley.” 
Standing only a few days since within a nearly new 
Victoria house to which we had rambled, one might there 
see fully and deplorably exemplified the effects of in¬ 
sufficient ventilation upon our regal protegee; and from the 
heat maintained within this structure we should imagine 
the want of high temperature could not have been the cause 
of the lamentable failure before us. That building contained a 
plant of the Victoria regia in the most abject and pitiable con¬ 
dition we have ever seen a plant of its age ; and yet the capsule 
of seed from which that plant was obtained produced at the 
same time, in the same house, and under precisely similar 
circumstances, another plant, which a more genial and 
natural system of cultivation elsewhere has converted into 
one of the finest specimens of the Victoria to be met 
with at the present time in Great Britain. This fact, 
therefore, must be conclusive; and, as we have now treated 
upon the principal points connected with its cultivation at 
Chatsworth, it will not be altogether out of place to present 
our readers with an account of the mode of cultivation 
adopted on the Continent at one of the establishments 
where it has been grown very successfully. The instance 
we are about to quote is a translation from the German, 
kindly furnished us by Mr. W. Birschel, which will show 
that our continental neighbours were not backward in 
hailing its introduction into Europe. 
“ The Victoria regia house at the Royal Gardens, Herren- 
liausen, near Hanover, was fitted up for the reception of this 
regal plant in the spring of 1851. The tank is thirty feet in 
length, and nineteen feet broad; its depth, calculated from 
the surface of the water, is four feet in the centre, and one 
foot and a half along the outer edges. The Victoria regia 
cultivated here was raised from seed procured for this 
establishment from the Royal Gardens at Kew, and from 
those of the Duke of Northumberland at Sion House, in 1850. 
j This was the first plant introduced into Germany, and 
flowered for the first time in the summer of 1851. The 
seeds germinated towards the end of November and in the 
commencement of December, and on the 10th of March they 
were finally transplanted into the tank. On the 22nd of June 
the first bloom expanded, and until the end of November 
more than fifty others followed. At the commencement the 
young leaves are turned or folded inwardly, and, being 
covered at the back with prickles, have the appearance 
! of a prickly shell or hedgehog. Mostly on the third day 
after making its appearance above water the young leaf has 
fully expanded itself, and it has then entered the period of 
its quickest growth, averaging fifteen to twenty-seven inches 
in the twenty-four hours. The upper side is light green 
and smooth, whilst the under side is somewhat red and 
prickly, provided with three strong ribs, containing aerial 
channels radiating out from the point where the petiole is 
attached to the leaf, which are again united by cross ribs, 
which cause the great portableness of the leaf.” Here 
follows what is now too well known to bear repetition—a 
botanical description of the leaf, and also an account of an 
experiment carried out before His Majesty the King of 
Prussia to ascertain what amount of pressure the leaf is 
capable of sustaining; buti to proceed with the cultivation. 
“ lwo plants, planted at equal distances from the centre, 
occupy this tank. The extreme point of the leaf is generally 
sixteen or seventeen feet from the stock of the plant; that 
is to say, when the petioles and leaves are fully developed ; 
therefore a fully-developed plant, with sufficient space to 
spread, would have a circumference of about 100 to 110 
feet.” 
After this follows a description of the flower from the 
appearance of the flower-buds until the expiration of the 
two days that complete its reign; and this, although not 
strictly bearing on the cultural subject, is, nevertheless, so 
truthful an account that to suppress its appearance here 
1 would bo but a poor compliment to the abilities of the 
translator; and, for our own part, often, and daily 
; almost, as we have watched the expansion of this mag- 
