VISITS TO NURSERIES; 
101 
sides, yet the massive columns cause the light to fall a little 
“pale,” if not “dreadful,” upon the plants. In point of altitude, 
this is the best of all the glazed houses at Kew ; and the plants 
show a little grateful for being delivered from the dull continuity 
of an over-topping north wall, without any openings in it. 
What motive may have at first induced the constructors of 
green-houses and stoves so to contrive them as that the contained 
plants should get light on the one side, and be doomed to dark¬ 
ness on the other, it would not be easy to determine upon any 
principle at all connected with the philosophy of vegetation ; but 
it is pretty evident that a worse construction could not have been 
hit upon, even though the object of the parties had been to find 
out the very worst. Probably the object in view in contriving 
this clumsy, antiquated, and inappropriate style of conservatory 
or stove, was to shelter the plants from the north wind ; but this 
shelter, even if there had been any meaning in it, was obtained at 
an immense sacrifice. If they had looked to nature they would 
not have failed in discovering the advantages of a northern ex¬ 
posure in all situations except those in which the wind blows 
violently as through a funnel; and where this is the case a wind 
from one point of the compass is just as bad as from another. 
Examine a hill or valley of any degree of steepness, and it will 
invariably be found that the slope toward the north consists of 
better soil, and is clothed with richer vegetation, than that toward 
the south. So also in trees, and especially in pines and other 
coniferce which abound in turpentine, the timber on a northern 
slope, or even that of the northern side of a tree, is superior to 
that on the southern. These northern walls rising to the roof or 
higher, may be advantageous for the forcing of some descriptions 
of fruit; but in a botanical garden, though the plants ought 
always to be well treated, all unnatural forcing tends to defeat 
the grand object of the establishment. To ascertain to what de¬ 
gree, in what manner, and to what good purpose, plants may be 
changed by foiling and other artificial modes of treatment, is very 
valuable to the cultivator of plants, whether his object be flowers 
or fruit; but in a botanical garden, the chief value of which con¬ 
sists in having every plant as nearly in its natural condition as 
possible, all artificial modes of treatment are mischievous as well 
as useless; and we may add, that it would be a great addition to 
such establishments if they contained the wild types of all plants 
