280 THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. [December, 



new modes of using glass in the formation of houses, screens, or ground or wall 

 protectors, mark a new era in its portability. By the adoption of Beard's patent 

 wrought-iron bars, and his felt buffers for the glass, the house or screen of 

 to-day, may be converted into a box of glass, a bundle of iron, and a roll of felt 

 to-morrow. Bendle's Protectors, again, are simple, and instantaneously resolved 

 into heaps of bricks, and boxes of glass. 



In Beard's wall-tree screens each rafter is complete in itself, and like every 

 other rafter of the series. An iron wall- plate is laid along the ground or raised 

 on brick walls, or piers, or wooden posts, at the option of the user. On this 

 plate, raised lugs are cast, in pairs, at intervals of 20 in., and pierced with holes, 

 and into each of these spaces between the lugs, the lower end of the rafter is 

 placed, and an iron pin is passed through the pierced lug and bottom of the 

 rafter. Along the top of the wall, just under the coping, an iron bar is carried 

 along, being held in position by a few staples driven into or bolts run through the 

 wall. To this support the upper end of the rafter is hooked or tied on. Thus the 



top and bottom are immovably fixed in the right places. But something more is 

 needful to keep the bars in position and brace them into greater stiffness. It 

 will be observed from fig. 1, which shows the screen at work on the wall, that 

 the upper portion of the bar is bent. This form acts like a bracing tie on the 

 rafter, and gives it additional strength. It is likewise of great service in throwing 

 out the bar from the top portion of the wall, and enabling it to be brought down 

 at a nearly uniform distance from it. This arrangement of surface is likewise the best 

 possible for counteracting the energy of radiation by compensation from surround- 

 ing bodies. About half-way between these bands and the base of the bar, other 

 holes are pierced ; through these convenient lengths of iron rod are run, and are 

 rendered continuous and without break, for any distance, by the use of coupling 

 screws that bind the handy lengths together. Upon this bar, small pipes, whose 

 length is exactly the width between the rafters, are placed ; and these, as the screws 

 are tightened, abut against the rafters on each side, and keep the whole quite firm. 

 Then follows a buffer of prepared felt on the top of the iron rafter ; next, a sheet 

 of 26-oz. glass, then a second buffer of felt, and finally, the covering bar, 



