CHAPTER XVII.
THE CONSERVATORY AND WINTER GARDEN.
Having now treated of tlie 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 con-
servatory 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 mis-
take, for while they are unsuitable in character, the condi-
tions 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 ephe-
meral 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 embellish-
ment 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 secon-
dary 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