232 



TEE GARDENER'S MONTHLY 



[August, 



Wff 



^REEN mOUSE AND MoUSE GARDENING. 



SEASONABLE HINTS. 



August and September are often taken as the 

 time to repair plant houses and build new ones. 

 A few hints in connection may not be out of the 

 way. Summer heat shrinks wood, and very 

 often loosens glass, and makes leaks, through 

 which water drips in fell and winter most annoy- 

 ingly. This is worse Avhen there is putty. This 

 is used now only to lay the glass in. The glass 

 is pressed down on it, tacked doAvn by brads, 

 and only painted on the outside. The laps of 

 the glass should be as narrow as possible and 

 white — not dark — paint used. Never use dark 

 paint or dark material about the house if possi- 

 ble, and most positively avoid tar. 



Water tanks, collecting rain fi'om the roof, can 

 often be introduced to advantage. WHere the 

 earth is solid no stone or brick need be used. 

 Put on a thin coat of mortar, say a quarter of an 

 inch, and on this a coat of cement about as thick 

 as a sheet of brown paper. The thinner the ce- 

 ment coat the more chance of its being water- 

 proof. We have known one barrel do for one 

 thousand square feet of surface, and be as im- 

 perious to water as glass. For large ranges of 

 glass there is nothing that equals hot-water pipes 

 for heating. For small greenhouses well-con- 

 structed flues answer. Flues should be near the 

 ground but never touch it. If there are cracks 

 in flues, permitting the passage of smoke and gas, 

 it is no use to plaster over it. Work out the whole 

 mortar near the crack — that is, make the hole 

 larger — and fill in with new mortar. Never paint 

 or Avhitewash flues. A flue of any length, even 

 on a dead level, can be made to draw by build- 

 ing a fire at the end of it. By this we rarify the 

 air, making it lighter, and the heavier air rushes 

 in at the furnace end to take its place. A close 

 reflection on this foct will alway.'s enalile one to 

 build a flue that will, to a dead certainty, draw 

 well. There is no excuse whatever for a badlv 

 drawing flue. In small bay windows, fitted up 

 for plants, close curtains maybe drawn across to 

 cut off the atmosphere of the room ; and if 

 double glass be used for the windows, or the 



window itself be in a sheltered place, a good oil 

 lamp or two will generally suffice to keep out 

 frost. 



COMMUNICA TIONS. 



GREENHOUSE FURNACES. 



BY W. T. BELL, FRANKLIN, PA. 



Your directions to W. H. L. on this subject, in 

 June number, are scarcely explicit enough to 

 enable a person without experience to build a 

 good furnace and flue, and having had some- 

 thing to do with flues I will, with your permis- 

 sion, supplement your article with a few addi- 

 tional directions, which shall at least have the 

 merit of being practical. 



If convenient, W. H. L. should make a cellar 

 or pit adjoining the end of his greenhouse, and 

 five or six feet in depth. The furnace should be 

 built within the greenhouse, but the door should 

 be open into the cellar, so as to exclude the dust 

 and smoke from the plants. The cellar may be 

 made large enough to answer for a coal house. 



Furnace fronts and fixtures, consisting of a 

 heavy casting, with two doors, metal grate-bars, 

 etc., should be used ; and the ash-pit of the fur- 

 nace may be raised about a foot from the floor of 

 the cellar. 



The foundation and walls of the furnace should 

 be strongly built, not less than eight inches in 

 thickness ; and all that portion exposed to the 

 fire, as well as the first ten feet of the flue, should 

 be built of the best fire-brick. 



The size of the furnace will depend on the size 

 of the house to be heated, and the fuel to be used. 

 If the latter is to be wood mainly, the ftirnace 

 shouTfl be larger than if coal or coke is to be 

 l)urned. 



For a greenhouse of fifty feet in length, where 

 coal or coke is to be the fuel, a good size to make 

 the furnace will be three feet long, eighteen 

 inches wide and twenty inches high, above the 

 bars. The arch for the top of the furnace may be 

 built on a core of soil, rammed firm and trimmed 

 to the shape desired. 



