March 28, 1903. 
The Gardening World 
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Views and Reviews. 
An Arctic House for Plants. 
We have now houses for growing the plants 
of tropical, sub-tropical, temperate, and cold 
countries, but arctic plants are able to grow 
in the open air without protection. An idea 
has now been started by Mr. John Munro in 
the “ Times ” concerning the construction of 
a. house for the cultivation of arctic or polar 
plants. The nearest approach to it, as sug¬ 
gested by other writers, is the retarding of 
hila,cs, Lilies, Lily of the Valley, and various 
other subjects, for the purpose- of delaying 
their bloom until some period long after their 
natural season. This is advantageous inas¬ 
much as it enables tlio-se flowers to be 
obtained much more easily than by the 
ordinary process of forcing. 
It is not- very clear in some instances what 
the writers are- driving at, nor do they appear 
to be certain as to whether any useful pur¬ 
pose could be served by an arctic house, 
beyond being a means of conducting experi¬ 
ments. Mr. Munro-speaks about there being 
a tropical house or .conservatory at Ke-w. 
There are several tropical houses, but neither 
of them are synonymous with the cons-e-rva- 
tory. He also states that there is an alpine 
garden, but hitherto not an arctic house. 
There is, ho-wever, an alpine house where the 
plants are grown, not to keep them cool, but 
to protect them from the cold of the English 
climate. This see-ms paradoxical in the face 
o-f advocating the claims of our attention to 
the construction of an arctic house, and the 
fitting up of refrigerating plant for the pur¬ 
pose of making snow and ice, and a tempera^ 
ture similar to what the plants are subjected 
to in alpine regions. Mr. Munro thinks such 
a cold conservatory would he- interesting, 
possible, and a novelty, as “ so-me pretty 
effects of sno-w and ice might be produced 
even in summer.” The writer also desired 
that someone would point, out if there was 
any insuperable obstacle in the way of such 
a house. Hithe-rto, it seems, no answer to 
his question has been advanced. 
In our opinion the chief use of an arctic 
house would be to- retard plants until a cer¬ 
tain desirable time; and for the making of 
experiments, to- see what effects could be pro¬ 
duced by low temperatures, and a short, grow¬ 
ing season. The pretty effects of snow and 
ice is mere sentiment, because, however 
pretty they might be regarded, it, would be 
impossible- to reproduce the conditions- on 
anything like a scale that would make one 
believe he was in the arctic regions, or e-ve-n 
o-n o-ur own little Alps o-f Wales and Scot¬ 
land. The question of retarding alpine 
plants is only of secondary importance, be¬ 
cause it would require, not only a house, but 
refrigerating apparatus to keep the plants in 
a dormant condition ; whereas, with an un¬ 
heated alpine house, we could protect the 
plants from inclemencies of the weather dur¬ 
ing o-ur winter and early spring, and thereby 
be enabled to e-njo-y them in perfection at a 
time when hardy flowers are scarce, because 
at the mercy o-f the weather in the open. 
1 o- s-ee alpine or arctic plants in full bloom, 
and at the same time look upon snow and 
ice- in the near vicinity, is altogether ridicu¬ 
lous. Plants do not bloo-m when the tem¬ 
perature is very low ; that is, when they are 
freezing, nor when covered with snc-w or 
ice. The alpine plants come into- bloom 
when the temperature is fairly high, genial, 
and certainly considerably above freezing 
point. The-re may be snow and ice in their 
vicinity, either higher up the mountains or 
even actually below the level o-f the plants 
in bloom, but such snow and ice would be 
that occupying the hollows whe-re. the snow 
had been blown in winter : and such immense 
heaps tilling up the hollows lie a lo-ng time, 
because they melt less rapidly than when 
only in thin layers. How is it possible, then, 
to see alpine plants in full bloom in a small 
house, with snow and ice in the same struc¬ 
ture? The snow would very quickly melt, 
and that effect would be lost in a short 
time. It is difficult to see how it is possible 
to- have alpine- plants flowering in perfection 
in the neighbourhood of unmelted ice and 
snow in a small house of artificial construc¬ 
tion. 
We learn from “ Cold Storage ” that, 
according to Mr. J. Bryant Sowerby, of the 
Royal Botanic Society of London, that the 
