102 
THE FLORIST’S JOURNAL. 
that have been much changed by culture, because that would let 
the cultivator see what his art had accomplished in the cases of 
those plants ; and this would be a strong inducement to the 
making of new improvements. 
The stove or green-house, with the high-backed wall, and 
single slope of roof from that wall, is attended with many incon¬ 
veniences ;—the chief of which are the absence of light and of air 
when necessary at one side of the house ; and the reducing of a 
whole collection to a single profile, instead of having four, as there 
are in a rectangular house with a passage on every side. This 
last form of house gives a wonderful freedom to the air, even with 
an equal degree of temperature ; and has indeed as many advan¬ 
tages as the other form has defects. 
The want of the full light of the horizon, and the stagnation of 
the air, are especially injurious to those tropical plants, or plants 
which require artificial heat, or even shelter, for a portion of the 
year. By far the greater number of such plants grow naturally 
in light more intense than the greatest heat of the sun in Eng¬ 
land ; and in such places the air, especially when the plants are 
flowering, is very pure and transparent. Heat may be artificially 
applied to plants, so as to give them the natural temperature of 
any climate whatsoever, or even to force them beyond this, when 
the object of the cultivator requires it; but no contrivance which 
has hitherto been hit upon can bring up the natural light of the 
sun to the corresponding degree of intensity ; and there seems to 
be some element wanting in artificial lights, by which want they are 
rendered unfit for wholesome vegetable action. Therefore, even 
in the best contrived houses as to light, the plant has to work 
under a disadvantage ; and this disadvantage is always the greater, 
the more that artificial heat is requisite for bringing the tempe¬ 
rature up to that of the native climate of the plant. 
The stoves and green-houses in Kew Gardens, with the partial 
exception of the new conservatory already alluded to, and a small 
conservatory which is chiefly devoted to a miscellaneous collection 
of flowering plants, all possess these objectionable qualities in a 
high degree, with the addition of a most inconveniently low roof 
in many instances. This is especially the case with the houses 
devoted to the palms, and other tall plants of warm climates. At 
times, some of the palms have shown their impatience of this con¬ 
finement, by pushing their leaves right through the glass of the 
