CHAPTER XVII.
THE CONSERVATORY AND WINTER GARDEN.
Having now treated of the several sections of greenhouse plants that appear entitled to first consideration in these pages, we propose to offer a few remarks on the furnishing of the conservatory. It is too much the custom to devote the conservatory to ignoble purposes which necessitate labour and anxiety in proportion to their worthlessness. To grow soft-wooded plants in a lofty, airy, roomy edifice is always a mistake, for while they are unsuitable in character, the conditions are unfavorable to their prosperity, and they neither grow nor flower as they ought to justify the keeping of them. The noblest conservatory plants require far less skill and entail less expense to do them perfect justice than the ephemeral flowering plants that look so fresh and bright when thriving in a warm, damp, low-roofed house, when there is no fear of their being “lost” in a large perspective. The first step towards a proper recognition of the kind of embellishment required is to remember that a conservatory is not a stove, or a greenhouse, or a pit, or a hand-light, consequently it should not be used as any one of these things, or as all of these things combined. We employ the several structures enumerated, the conservatory alone excepted, for production simply; and, therefore, although a tasteful arrangement of plants is everywhere or everyhow to be desired, yet where production is the primary proposal, mere display is of secondary importance. On the other hand, we may, and do, and should employ the conservatory for production, but display is the matter of first importance, and therefore the conservatory claims the first labours of the “hand of taste.” If it be necessary to tie out a plant to a forest of rude stakes, it may be done in the greenhouse; if it be necessary even to suspend a plant head downwards, and make the pot containing it the
