786 



tl O RTI CULTURE. 



December 12, 1908 



The Moving of Two Iron Frame Houses . 



WM. SIM, CLIFTONDALE, MASS.— EBEN JORDAN, WENHAM, MASS. 



Wm. Sim's House, 43:;2u0, at Cliftondale, Mass. 



The practical portability of the iron 

 frame house of sectional construction, 

 was demonstrated in two very inter- 

 esting instances this season — William 

 Sim, the sweet pea grower, bought an 

 erected house 43 feet wide and 200 feet 

 long, from T. T. Vandervere, Concord, 

 Mass. Mr. Sim's own men took the 

 house down, loaded it on the cars and 

 re-erected it at Cliftondale, just out- 

 side of Boston. 

 With a house of this 

 width, having such 

 long spans of un- 

 ■wieldly rafters to 

 handle, its erection 

 by practically un- 

 skilled men is cer- 

 tainly interesting. 



Mr. Sim, like our 

 Western friends, does 

 not figure the size of 

 his range as so much glass surface — but 

 as "covering 100,000 square feet of 

 ground space" or that "it takes 375 gal- 

 lons of paint to go over it one coat." The 

 steam heating arrangement is some- 

 what of a departure, as all the pipes 

 are placed on the sides and all flows 

 feed from an 8 inch main at one end of 



houses, and directly into return at the 

 other end. All flows are valved at 

 each end so any number of pipes can 

 be used. 



One 3-inch return, which is placed 

 outside the houses in a plank-lined 

 conduit, carries all the condensation to 

 the automatic pump and then back into 

 the two 125 H. P. boilers. Mr. Sim 

 says, "contrary to impressions, there is 



The Jordan Range as it Looked at Plymouth, Mass. 



practically no variation in the tem- 

 perature in any part of the house with 

 his all-side piping." 



The Eben Jordan two houses, each 

 24 feet wide and 12 feet long, which 

 were erected seven years ago at Ply- 

 mouth, Mass., have been torn down by 

 Lord & Burnham Co.'s men and taken 



sixty miles to Wenham, and there re- 

 erected. Aside from the replacing of 

 the cypress benches and adding a con- 

 necting passage between the work- 

 room, the range in its present location 

 is unchanged. 



The new benches for the rose house 

 were made with deep sides for 8 inches 

 of soil, it being the idea of Mr. Abra- 

 ham, the superintendent, that plenty of 

 room should be had 

 for top dressing where 

 the plants are carried 

 over. He raises his 

 cucumbers and melons 

 in hills without any 

 additional soil in the 

 benches. 



Here are two not- 

 able examples of the 

 portability of the iron 

 frame greenhouse. Not 

 that any one builds 

 with the idea of re- 

 moval, but it certainly 

 would seem to be an advantage to have 

 a construction that can be removed with 

 least trouble and expense, should the 

 necessity arise — one in which the 

 frame goes together entirely with bolts 

 and screws and, because of the method 

 of attaching the bars at both plate and 

 ridge, with a sash bar clasp, can be 

 easily unscrewed and taken down 

 without any injury to the bars. 



As the Jordan Range Now Is at Wenham, Mass. 



