Io INTRODUCTORY SUGGESTIONS. 
detached houses. When, however, each house is large 
enough to completely employ the labor of one or two men, 
the advantages of the nesting of the houses is not so great ; 
and it may even be better, in such cases, to have the houses 
entirely separate, in order to facilitate the hauling of earth 
and other supplies into them. 
Aside from the labor required to grow the plants, the 
operator must figure on the cost of the heating. It is imper- 
ative that the temperatures be kept fairly uniform during the 
night. In fact, variations of temperature are usually more 
hurtful at night than at day. For the best results, every 
forcing establishment should have a night man; but sucha 
man can not be afforded forasmall house. In this case, 
the gardener must place his dependence upon the self-regu- 
lating devices of the modern heaters ; but even then he will 
need to give some attention to his house on very severe 
nights. Very much depends upon the faithfulness and 
efficiency of the night man. Very often the owner will find 
the temperature of the houses to be ideal at bed-time and 
at 6 in the morning, while, if he had been astir at 4 o’clock, - 
he would have found it ten degrees too low. He would, if 
he knew the circumstances, cease to wonder why his crops 
were slow in growth and always attacked by mildew. 
In order to arrive at actual expenditures for heat and 
labor, I have asked a few of my friends and correspon- 
dents —all wide-awake commercial growers—to give me 
their judgment upon the quantity of coal required to heat 
for one year a rose house of modern construction, 20 x 100 
feet ground surface, even span, to ft. high at the ridge. I 
also asked, ‘‘ About how large an establishment does it 
require, in roses or winter tomatoes, to keep one good 
workman busy during the forcing season, in watering, ven- 
tilating, training, picking the product, etc. (not attending 
to the firing)?’’ The answers to these questions are 
given below. Where the size of the house is not speci- 
fied, it is understood to be 20 x too ft., as stated in the 
problem. 
