Aquarium is the place devoted to the cultivation of aquatic or water plants. The majority of those cultivated are exotic, and require the protection of glass. If there are only a few of these they may be successfully grown in cisterns placed in a stove; but if the collection be extensive, it requires a separate edifice. The tank system of heating by hot water offers a very superior mode of keeping the water at a fitting temperature. The leaden cistern in which the plants arc submerged may rest readily upon the slates forming the cover of the tank.

Mr. Loudon recommends an aquarium to be thus constructed: "The cistern to be close under the front glass, and have that glass rather flat, say at an agle of fifteen degrees, or two cisterns might be formed, one in the back part of the house for tall plants, and the other in front, for plants with floating foliage, with a broad path between. But the most elegant plan would be to have a circular house, having glass on all sides, to have a cistern in the centre for river plants, and a surrounding cistern for those which grow in stagnant water. To imitate the effect of the motion of water in the central cistern, the mould or pots in which the plants grow might be placed on a bottom, apart from that of the cistern, and this bottom being on the end of an upright shaft, might, by the aid of proper machinery in a vault below, be kept in perpetual circular motion. Those plants which grow naturally in rapid streams, might be planted or placed on the circumference of the bottom, and those requiring less agitation towards its centre.

If reversed motion was required to imitate tides, (where marine aquatics were cultivated,) nothing could be easier than by the sort of wheel used in the patent mangle to produce it to any extent, or by another still more simple plan known to every engineer, it might be changed seldomer, say only once or twice in twenty-four hours. If a rapid and tortuous motion was required, then let the bottom on which the plants are placed be furnished with small circular wheels placed on its margin working on pivots, and furnished on their edges with teeth like a spur wheel. Then let there be a corresponding row of teeth fixed to the inside of the wall, or side of the cistern, into which they are to work, like a wheel and pinion.

"By this means pots of plants set on the small wheels will have a compound motion, one round the centre of the small wheels, and another round that of the large bottom, something of the nature of the planetary motion, but more like that of the waltz dance. It is almost needless to add, that exotic aquatic fowls and fishes might be kept in such an aquarium, and either of the sea or fresh water rivers, according as salt water or fresh was used. It may be thought by some that the machinery would be intricate and troublesome; but the power requisite is so very small, that it might easily be obtained by machinery on the principle of the wind-up jack, such as is used by Deacon in his ventilating Eolians.

"This kind of mechanism very seldom goes out of order or requires repairs, and would require no other attention than being wound up twice in twenty-four hours, and oiled occasionally. The same vault that contained it might serve for the furnace or boiler for heating the house." - Gard. Enc.

The following are aquatic stove plants: -

Aponogeton angustifolium.

----------------distachyon.

---------------- monostachyon.

Arum venosum. Cyperus alternifolius.

- papyrus. Damasomum indicurn. Euryale ferox. Menyanthes indica.

----------------ovata.

Nelumbium speciosum. Nymphaea caerulea.

-------------lotus.

-------------pubescens.

-------------pygmaea.

-------------rubra.

-------------stellata.

-------------versicolor.

Philydrum lanuginosum. Pontederia cordata.

----------------dilatata.

Sagittaria lancifolia.

-------------obtusifolia.

Thalia dealbata.

Propagation And Culture

Being all herbaceous plants, they are to be propagated as these generally are; some are raised from seeds, which, in general, should be sown as soon as ripe, and the pots plunged in shallow water; when the plants come up they may be transplanted into other pots, and shifted as they advance in growth, till in a pot of sufficient size to admit their flowering, which will generally take place the same season. Instead of being kept in pots, the plants may be inserted in a bed of earth on the bottom of the aquarium. Keep the water warm, say from 70° to 75° in summer, and leave them nearly dry in winter. Nelumbium speciosum requires a water heat of 84°.

Cyperus, Papyrus, Nelumbium, Nym-phaea, Limnocharis, Hydrocharis, Sagittaria, and Pentederia, will furnish variety enough.

Stove For Aquatics

For one combined with the culture of Orchideous Plants see the latter title.

Hardy Aquatics require an aquarium proportioned to the size of the rest of the pleasure grounds; and that its bottom be rendered retentive of water by puddling with clay. Its sides should be sloping, and cut into terraces, so as to be suited to the various heights of the plants, and its margins should be formed of rough stones and fragments of rock, among which marsh plants will grow luxuriantly.