1882.] 



AND HORTICULTURIST. 



167 



Greenhouse and House Gardening. 



SEASONABLE HINTS. 



There seems to be a growing taste for green- 

 houses, chiefly, as it would seem, for the purpose 

 of having flowers at command all winter. At 

 this season the resolve is usually made by those 

 who have none, to supply the luxury before the 

 season is over. It is to be regretted that those 

 who desire these pleasant attractions to a home, 

 do not get the opportunity of better advice in 

 the building. We have seen many cases w'here 

 the houses have had enormous amounts of 

 money spent on them, to the al solute obstruc- 

 tion of the main idea, — plant growing. Houses 

 that would have been made models of beauty 

 and very successful as plant houses, for $500, 

 have been rendered useless by having $2,000 

 spent on them. The village carpenter, or the 

 grand city architect or builder, have alike had 

 their turn at greenhouse building ; the intelli- 

 gent garden architect is seldom given a chance. 



But here again we think the intelligent gai-- 

 dener misses it, in not more generally studying 

 these outside branches in connection with the 

 practical parts of his profession. There is room 

 for such men in every large city and town in the 

 United States. A florist, who is at once a good 

 nurseryman and an intelligent gentleman in 

 every sense of the word — who could at once 

 grow plants, tell all about them, design a dwell- 

 ing house or tiorticultural building, make roads, 

 and have a good knowledge of the correct prin- 

 ciples of art a'nd taste — would soon be among the 

 wealthy leaders of society in any district, pro- 

 vided he has ordinary business tact added to bis 

 intellectual accomplishments. 



In learning these things common sense is of 

 more importance than scholastic training. The 

 one who can profit by experience, is more 

 rapidly on the road to success than the one who 

 spends a year at college. Passing through a 

 greenhouse recently, in an establishment under 

 the charge of a very good gardener, a workman 

 was found at work putting down a mortar floor. 

 The other, which had been down but two years, 

 was worn out. It never occurred to the ex- 

 cellent gardener to profit by this experience. 



Mortar is the result of crystallization, and anj-- 

 thing of this nature readily fractures under a 

 sudden blow. Mortar floors will therefore soon 

 wear out under the heels of pedestrians. But a 

 lime floor is a different thing from a mortar 

 floor. The lime must slack wholly under water, 

 so that there is no chance to heat so as to en- 

 gender crystallization. When mixed with three 

 or four times its bulk of sand, so as to make a 

 sort of limy mud, and then rolled with a heavy 

 roller several times while drying, so as to press 

 out every particle of air, we have a floor as 

 hard as iron that will never crumble under the 

 feet. Then as to mortar itself. Even the aver- 

 age mason does not know how to make it, and 

 the gardener should be able to tell him how to 

 do it. Here we want crystallization, and only 

 water enough should be given to raise the heat 

 in the lime, and the sand should be added while 

 the lime is slacking. Perhaps half the mortar 

 in use even by good masons, rarely hardens. 

 The clay or dirt in the sand generally gets the 

 blame, but it is rather ignorance of the laws of 

 crystallization. Again, in regard to walls. One 

 has perhaps to be built up against a bank. The 

 earth on the back of the bank may be soft, and 

 admit water. A mortar wall is built against it. 

 The mortar being little else than plaster, absorbs 

 water. This freezes and the mortar expands. 

 Then the w^all frills down. The good gardener 

 learns a lesson. The next time he has a dry 

 wall built— that is to say, one without any mor- 

 tar—and he never after this puts up a mortar 

 wall against soft earth. But the man who can- 

 not learn— the one who wonders why that stupid 

 fellow gets along, and he, poor, hard-working 

 fellow, never thrives— he builds up the mortar 

 wall just as before, until bad luck throws it 

 down again. Recently the writer saw another 

 very u'ood fellow in his way, stopping up with 

 cement a crack in a brick flue. He had often 

 done it before. He had never learned to do it 

 once for all. There was the crack, and he plas- 

 tered a quarter of an inch all over it. It cracked, 

 and will crack again. If he had made the small 

 crack a large one, so that he could have pushed 

 the cement right into it— a solid mass in the 



