No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 785 



In the building of tables or stages upon which to grow roses, car- 

 nations or other plants, the boards used for forming the bottom of 

 said tables are usually six inches wide and are placed from a half- 

 inch to three-quarters of an inch apart, and over the bottom of the 

 stable coarse manure, straw or material of like character is spread 

 to keep the soil from trickling through and also to aid in securing 

 the necessary drainage. Drainage in pots, ''crocking," is provided 

 for by placing broken pots, oyster shells or coarse coal ashes at the 

 bottom. Any pot smaller than that known as a two and a half inch 

 pot is rarely or never ''crocked." 



To go back to the drainage of the solid beds again. Some soils are 

 so well drained naturally that there is no necessity of going to the 

 trouble or expense of furnishing any other form of drainage. Gen- 

 erally speaking, however, it is believed to be safer to furnish some 

 sort of drainage. Drain-tiles are sometimes laid in the length of the 

 bed, and the deeper they are laid in the earth the larger the area 

 which a given line of pipe will drain. Some florists lay two lines 

 of tile the length of the house in each bed, only as deep as the natural 

 grade would be, and these ends are left open and project through 

 and flush with the outer edge of the retaining walls, as much to 

 aerate the soil as to drain same from surplus water. Coarse real 

 ashes, broken bricks, stones or similar rough material is frequently 

 used at the bottom of bed for the same purpose. 



Sub-irrigation is being experimented with to some extent, but so 

 far a cheap method of constructing a bed where sub-irrigation could 

 be practiced to advantage has not yet been adopted to any extent. 

 Tt promises well, I am inclined to think, but just the right plan of 

 operation has not so far been hit upon. 



ASPECT. 



There is some difference of opinion as to the proper aspect of a 

 greenhouse to be used exclusively for the production of cut flowers 

 in winter, the consensus of opinion favoring a position a few 

 points east of south. This aspect favors the early morning sun 

 getting in his good work, which is considered the most life-giving, 

 consequently of the greatest value and best not for plants alone 

 but all animatpd nature. 



When a greenhouse is built in which to grow Palms, Ferns and 

 Smilax and other classes of plants which are grown for their foliage 

 alone, it makes little or no difference which aspect the greenhouse 

 occupies. Palms assume a deeper green and develop equally as sat- 

 isfactorily if they are not given too much sun at any stage of their 

 existence. In Belguim, where many Palms and other foliage plants 



50—6—1902 



