Page:The Amateur's Greenhouse and Conservatory.djvu/9

Rh between the meanings of such terms as “stove,” “hothouse,” “greenhouse,” and “conservatory,” would serve no useful purpose. They are all plant houses, and depend for their distinctions quite as much on the furnishing and the management as upon structure and fittings. A house may be heated to 80° or 90° to-day for the comfort of orchids, and be called a stove. If we remove the orchids and put pelargoniums in their place, and lower the temperature to 40° or 50°, it becomes a greenhouse. We have but to enlarge it, and introduce camellias and acacias, and give the whole affair a somewhat elegant aspect, and it becomes a conservatory. These several terms are convenient because they refer to different things. But there is no occasion to define them precisely, and we might indeed go wrong were we to attempt the definition.