more perfectly. The stages ought not to be more than three or four feet from the glass, the side ones being quite flat, and that in the middle in a series of ascending shelves, so as to exhibit all the plants well, and bring them as near as possible to the glass. Flat centre stages will be more suitable where large specimens are grown. It is a good plan to have stages made of narrow bars of wood, with small openings between them, to let the drainage from the pots flow away freely, and also to facilitate the process of cleaning; a stage with open bars being much more easily kept clean than a close one.

As a plain embodiment of these general views regarding greenhouses, fig. 207, representing an imaginary section of such a house as that just described, may aid in making the intention

Fig. 207.

clearer. It shows a span-roofed house, with a path of wooden trellis-work round a flat centre stage, and two narrower flat side stages, the heating pipes being placed under these latter. There are ventilators, consisting of wood or iron shutters, in the side walls, admitting the cold air to pass over the heating pipes; and these ventilators are extremely useful in winter or damp weather, as they will air the house sufficiently without producing currents, or any great influx of cold. The upright sashes are also all hung to centre pivots, thus distributing the cold air introduced by a greater number of apertures. All the sloping roof is entirely fixed, and this is an important help to economy of construction and lightness of roof; while the upper ventilation is obtained by means of an

attic, with the vertical sashes also hung to centre pivots. Such a house would be quite a model for plant growing, whatever might be the temperature at which it was kept.

As climbing plants form one of the greatest ornaments to a green-house or conservatory, and do not injure other things if they are properly pruned and restrained, means should always be provided for growing them conveniently and well. The common mode of planting them in pits formed beneath the paths, or boxes placed below the stages, is open to serious objection, on account of depriving the soil and roots of all light and air, and thus prejudicing the production of flowers. A far preferable course is to keep the boxes or large pots containing them on the shelves, along with the other plants; and thus secure to them the same advantages as the rest; or, in a conservatory proper, to have a narrow border, for receiving them and dwarf flowering plants, and edged with a neat kerb-stone, round the sides of the house.

Borders and beds in the centre of conservatories, for growing the plants in, are very undesirable in a limited space, as plants, when placed in the free earth without pots, soon become large and rambling, when, of course, only a small number of them can be accommodated. Where the specimens are mostly large, however, and of an enduring but not rapid growing character, it may sometimes yield a finer effect to have them plunged in beds on a level with the floor in a low house, without taking them from the pots; only, in this case, the bed should be formed of very light soil, and be aërated or warmed, so as to prevent its coldness from causing the plants plunged in it to shed their flowers quickly.

Some modification of the practice just mentioned, or the placing of plants about in groups and singly on a paved floor, or a varied disposal of the stages, will relieve any kind of conservatory of the extreme tameness and want of character so generally prevalent, and convert it into an object of diversified and constantly, changing interest; for; whether it be in the grouping of the plants on a floor or on stages, or in the provision of spaces for passing among them for the purposes of inspection or culture, a conservatory should, in a certain way, resemble a flower-garden, and be treated, to some extent, as an in-door parterre. The simple and monotonous stages commonly seen, are utterly void of either beauty, art, or variety; and a

complete reformation of this branch of gardening is strongly needed. Perhaps a mixture of stages, and wire or other ornamental baskets and vases, and specimens placed on the floor, would occasion the highest diversity, and afford the greatest scope for an ingenious display of plants.

Figs. 208 and 209 will afford a slight idea of an attempt I made to give some degree of interest to the interior of a small span-roofed conservatory I had erected for Samuel Fielden, Esq., of Centre Vale, Todmorden, where the arrangement shown on the latter of these plans was adopted; the two being alternative modes of dealing with the same house. In these engravings, 1 indicates borders of earth, defined by kerb-stones, the rest of the floor

The borders are principally
Camellias, that against the

being paved with Yorkshire flags. for the reception of such plants as back wall being for climbers also. A central stage, with steps, is shown at 2. Flat side stages at 3 are supported on brackets, so as to leave as much floor-space as possible. The figures 4 denote the position of upright vases, for flowers, on pedestals. Wire baskets, on ornamental cast-iron pillar supports, to receive flowers in pots, occur at 5. Well-grown single specimen plants, either as standards or bushes, (but all to be similar in height and form,) are placed on the floor in suitable pots or small tubs at 6. And wire bracket-baskets, attached to the wall, for containing flowers, or ferns, or trailing plants, complete, at 7, the entire arrange

ment; with the addition, of course, of climbers trained loosely to the rafters and the back wall, and baskets of flowers dependent from the roof.

It may not be foreign to the design of this work to add that any method of partially breaking or relieving the space between the glass of a roof and the tops of the plants on the stages, or

the heads of visitors in the paths, will get rid of another and very manifest defect in most conservatories. Allowing climbers to grow a little loosely, and dangle from the rafters, will do much towards accomplishing this; but a point which has more to do with the construction will be to furnish hooks or staples, by which, at various parts, climbing or trailing plants in pots can be suspended from the roof, while their branches are left to depend gracefully in the air. The wire baskets introduced at the Sydenham Crystal Palace, and which have since become common, will furnish the happiest facilities for attaining this end. Bracket baskets, to hang against walls, and composed of wire or other materials, will be valuable as plant receptacles, seeing that they do not diminish the floor space or the apparent size of a house. Adequate contrivances for shading will further require attention; but the use of ground glass for the roof will diminish the necessity for this.

Should any wall of a conservatory be so high as to show much above the plants on the stages, it must be covered with wire rods or a wooden trellis to support climbers, as a blank white wall would appear very bald and disagreeable in such a place. Many pretty mosses, or Orchids, or Ferns, might, however, be suspended on blocks of wood, or in rustic or wire baskets, against the back wall of a conservatory, if the temperature were never allowed to sink very low; and these would help to cover, enliven, and adorn it.

Hot water is certainly the best medium for heating any planthouse and the simplest and least complex forms of apparatus will be preferable, as they are less liable to become deranged, and can soonest be brought into action. When sudden and violent frosts occur, the difference of an hour in the diffusion of heat between two kinds of apparatus hurriedly brought into use, may determine the safety or the loss of an entire collection of plants.

Every greenhouse should likewise contain a cistern for receiving the rain-water from its roof, in order that water of proper quality may be always at hand for the use of the plants, and that its temperature may in some measure assimilate to that of the house itself. Slate is usually the fittest material for such a

cistern.

Ventilation should always be by vertical sashes, hung on centre pivots, or hinges at the top, so that all the sloping lights of the roof may be fixed, and no rain be admitted while air is being introduced. This, where it is at all practicable, may be asserted as a positive rule, which modern science has elicited and confirmed.

In detached green-houses, a position not far from the kitchengarden, in a somewhat private corner of the place, where a small flower-garden can be made in the front, and a shed for potting, for a heating apparatus, and for other conveniences, may be had at the back without being thrust into notice, will be very appropriate. I have suggested nearness to the kitchen-garden, or to the garden-yard, because in that part these essentials are most likely to be met with.

Fig. 210 is a design that was prepared by me for a large group of plant-houses, brought together into the form of a Gothic conservatory, of varied outline, the centre line from 1 to 1 running nearly north and south, and the whole intended to be placed on a platform about 150 feet square, surrounded by broad walks, and approached up a terrace-bank about four feet