26 AUGUST 1949, Page 16

Artificial Climes Pictures have been published—in The Times—of a scientific

nursery, so to call it, in California, in which plants can be supplied with any climate in the world. Doubtless this American scheme is more elaborate than others, but it cannot be claimed as new. Glasshouses were designed and built at Rothamsted a good many years ago, in which plants (perhaps also insects) could be provided with their native climate wherever. they came from. Greenhouses, indeed, are on the market which provide a succession of chambers of different temperatures, and the degree of moi..- ture can be regulated.