266 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



( September 23, 1875. 



BO fine a display of vegetables. Potatoes are exceeding our 

 expectationB, and very lew diseased tubers are now being 

 talien np. Market prices are 5d. to 6d. per 14 lbs. — Beta. 



STRUCTURES FOR FORCING AND PROTECTION. 



No. 2. 



I;j a previous communication on page 200 I endeavoured, in 

 reply to many inquiries, to submit in a concise manner some 

 of the most simple forms of protective structures. A batch 

 of other applicants seeking instruction suggests that some- 

 thing more than mere shelter is needed. The great majority 

 covet something that is simple yet useful, economical yet 

 efficient. They not only require structures which with much 

 covering and great care will keep their bedding plants alive 

 during the winter, but they wish to keep them in a comfort- 

 able and healthy state. To this end fire heat must be afforded 

 in some form or other, for, as a means of winter protection, 

 heat from fermenting material, as manure and leaves, can 

 seldom be relied on. That heat is too moist, and subject to 

 fluctuation by weather changes that, however valuable it may 

 be in spring, it is not adapted for employment in winter. 



Hot water is now the orthodox medium of heating glass 

 Btructnres, and withal it is the best medium, being sweet. 



winter the soil is removed, and a lattice-work trellis is placed 

 for bedding plants. It is admirably adapted for its purpose, 

 and is inexpensive and substantial. 



Fig. 59, though perhaps more showy, is still more simple, 

 the flues being built in the walls ; the fire communicating 

 with the front, crossing one end, and continuing along the 

 back flue. In this pit bottom heat, when required for Melons 

 in the summer, is afforded by manure and leaves, and excellent 

 crops are produced ; a shows the soil, b the manure, c the 

 trellis, and d the flues. In the autumn the soil is removed 

 and a flooring of boards introduced, when bedding and green- 

 house plants are safely and healthfully kept. These simple 

 flue-heated pits are valuable adjuncts to any garden where 

 means of heating by hot water is not provided and cannot 

 be obtained. 



The next figure is more pretentious ; it is a section of a span- 

 roofed house heated by flues. The flues are made to furnish 

 both top and bottom heat, and between them are chambers 

 (a a) which communicate heat to the beds h h. The flues are 

 partly under the beds, to which they communicate heat by the 



jS i^ v^ y 



JZ. 



J2, 



A.JL 



iz g it> 



ao 



Fig. 60.— Flae-heated HouBe. 



Fig. 58.— Heated Pit. 



certain, and well under command; but as more than one 

 correspondent expresses himself, " to wait until a boiler and 

 hot-water pipes, is to wait an indefinite time," and he also 

 wishes to know if " something cannot be done by a flue." I 

 reply that a great deal may be done with a flue. A great deal 

 has been done, and is being done, by the aid of this primitive 

 mode of heating. Some of the best Black Hamburgh Grapes 

 that I have this year seen were produced by flue heat ; and I 

 have not seen a better house of Cucumbers than have been 

 produced with the aid of the flue as the sole means of supply- 

 ing artificial heat. But it is not because of what I have seen 

 that I speak a word in favour of flue-heating, but because my 

 own experience has afforded me proof of its usefulness. I 

 say this for the benefit of those who desire heat in some form, 

 and who cannot obtain a hot-water apparatus, but who yet 

 can manage to have a flue erected. 



Some years ago Mr. Abbey submitted plans by which I 

 benefited. As near as possible I will reproduce them for the 

 benefit of others. Fig. 58 is a very simple form of pit. It is 

 shown with two flues, or rather one flue commencing at and 

 running underneath the bed for bottom heat, and continuing 

 along the front for top heat. The chamber a a, covered with 



Fig. 5<J.— Flued Melon Pit. 



fiagBtones, affords heat for Cucumbers in spring. In the 



spaces left between the flagstones and the sides of the beds, as 

 well as by the chambers a a ; whOst top heat is afforded by 

 the sides of the two centre flues, and the heated air ascending 

 from the openings c c. This house is adapted, if the beds 6 b 

 are filled with tan, for plant-growing, or if filled with soil for 

 Cucumbers, Melons, or pot Vines. When I say pot Vines I 

 mean fruiting canes which have been grown in pots and then 

 planted-out to produce their fruit. By that simple mode very 

 large crops of Grapes may be obtained, and to those who have 

 seen them it is a matter of surprise that the bedding-out 

 system is not more general. In the hands of amateurs especi- 

 ally it is more easy and satisfactory than fruiting the Vines in 

 pots. 



But while admitting the great usefulness of flues preference 

 is given to hot water, and it may be useful to place the two 

 systems as adapted for the same purposes side by side. Fig. 61 



Fig. 61.— Hot-water Pit. 



shows an ordinary pit heated by two hot-water pipes, a a, for 

 bottom heat, which are surrounded by rubble, such as half 

 bricks, &o., from G to 9 inches of the same being placed above 

 them ; the rougher parts of the compost are then put en, or a 

 layer of charred turves an inch thick, so as to prevent the finer 

 soil from passing into the rubble, and on that from 10 inches 

 to a foot of soil, b, in which the Melons or Cucumbers are 

 planted in the centre of the bed. They are trained over the 

 soil in the same manner as those in dung frames. There are 



