THE FLOEAL WOELD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 121 



But all things considered, this is not a good structure for ordinary 

 greenhouse plants in winter, because of the damp, nor is Musgrave's stove 

 the best apparatus for heating it, because with a fire in a house there 

 must be a certain amount of dust. I should have carried four-inch hot 

 water pipes aJl round if the stove had never been placed there ; but once 

 placed it has remained, and has paid its cost in usefulness every winter 

 since. The proper use of a house of low pitch and in a damp situation like 

 this is for keeping and growing any kinds of plants that are nearly hardy, 

 and for economizing sun-heat during the summer months. Thus when the 

 borders are cleared in autumn, the plants are packed away here as close 

 as can be in sand or coal-ashes on the front bed, and after one watering 

 they want no more till they are taken out in spring to be cut in and 

 potted. By that time the heat of the sun is sufficient to give them a 

 good start, and with a good dung-bed at work close by, an immense 

 amount of stock can be got up in a brief period of time. Hydrangeas, 

 Fuchsias, Oenotheras, Lobelias, Gazanias, and whatever will endure damp 

 and need only moderate protection from frost, can be as well kept and 

 grown here as in the best greenhouse in the land. For instance, specimen 

 fuchsias and small fuchsias for plunging in beds all the summer are now 

 (May 20) showing bloom. They were all repotted at the end of March, 

 and shading was then put up to prevent scorching. So with hydrangeas 

 potted this spring into ten-inch pots ; these show on an average a dozen 

 heads of bloom each, and by the time the blooms are fully expanded they 

 will measure three feet across. As soon as these and the specimen 

 fuchsias begin to expand their blooms, which will be in a few days from 

 this time, they will be taken to a house we call " the corner shop," which 

 is, in fact, the show-house, and there they will be gay all the season. I 

 •only name these as indications of what may bo done in such a house, but 

 I will give one more instance. Last summer my windows were gay 

 with Queen Geraniums, which were the admiration of everybody, from 

 about the first week in June till the end of the season. Those geraniums 

 were all from cuttings put in on the 26th of April that year, and so 

 quickly did they acquire a state of maturity, that I would not risk a 

 record of the feat, except for the fact that the beauty of the plants was 

 a matter of public notoriety, for all the front windows were filled with 

 them, and there are several witnesses to the making of the cuttings on 

 the date just given. It happened thus. On the 26th of April, 1862, I 

 turned out all my Queens, which were huge, bushy plants, crammed into 

 six-inch pots, and planted them in a circle round a bed of rhododendrons. 

 In planting them a great heap of prunings accumulated, for they required 

 cutting into shape to make them uniform. The stoutest and straightest 

 of these prunings were picked out and potted in 60-sized pots, and put 

 on a back shelf of the lean-to. There they had a sprinkle night and 

 morning, and all day were in the full sun, so that the pots got so hot it 

 was scarcely safe to touch them with the hand. In a fortnight they had 

 filled the pots with roots, and were shifted into 48 size with one crock 

 only, and the stuff rammed in hard. That is the way to grow a large 

 plant in a small pot, and have no more shifting all the season. They 

 were returned to the back shelf, and in another fortnight were nearly as 

 bushy and bloomy as the plants they were cut from, Now this only 

 brings us to the 24th of May, and about that date I took my penknife 

 and took out the points of all the shoots that were as long as I needed 



