As Points in the Construction of Hot-houses, in the tract under consideration, deserving particular attention, we shall, in the first place, refer to what we have said, in our preceding article, on the subject of wintering vines in pineries (p. 411.), repeating the cut there given (fig. 93.), on account of the letters having been wrongly placed; a is the front wall and b the 4 in. wall within it. The mode adopted in Staffordshire well merits introduction in every part of the country where pines and vines are grown in the same house; indeed, we have seen no plan at all to be compared with it. Where an inner 4 in. wall cannot be adopted, or where there are no upright front sashes, then the next best plan of wintering vines grown in a pinery is, to bring down the shoots, and lay them along the bottom of the sloping glass as close up to it as possible; and then to interpose between them and the air of the house a thick coating of matting or of straw, sO as to exclude the heated air on the one side, and to admit the cold temperature of the open air through the glass to the vines on the other. This is done at Croxteth Park, and at many other places, where excellent grapes are grown in pineries; but it is only a make-shift, and not to be adopted in building a house. The mode of heating by hot water we cannot too strongly recommend for adoption every where, notwithstanding the prejudices against it in some quarters, and, among others, in the botanic garden at Liverpool. The most northerly point at which we have yet seen this plan of heating adopted is at Carlton Hall, near Penrith, where Messrs. Walker of St. John Square, Clerkenwell, London, are heating a range of houses, in their very excellent manner, and with perfect success. A much less perfect system is adopted at Lowther Castle; but which system is still found by Mr. Ward, the gardener, to be very superior to smoke flues. We have been father surprised not to find any curvilinear hot-houses farther north than Dallam Tower. We are very desirous to see that elegant mode of construction introduced among the lakes, and in the border districts (we should like to see specimens at Storrs Hall, and at Mrs. Starkey's), and have strongly recommended gardeners to examine the range of houses erected in the Manchester botanic garden, by Mr. John Jones of Mount Street, Birmingham. We were not surprised to hear the old objections to iron and copper, of rusting and poisoning the plants, and contracting and expanding, and thereby breaking the glass; but we had only to refer to the houses at Woburn Abbey and other places, where the copper sashes of Mr. Jones have not been painted at all, at any period of their endurance; and where, during the last three winters and summers, not a single pane has been broken by either the frost or the heat. With equal confidence can we refer to the immense iron houses erected by Messrs. Bailey of London, for Mrs. Beaumont, at Britton Hall. We have strongly recommended Mr. Dodd, gardener to Sir James Graham, at Netherby, to adopt metallic curvilinear houses, and hot water, in the erections which are about to be made in the kitchen-garden there; and we trust that he will not forget our recommendation.
