28 ORNAMENTAL GARDENING 
concrete. If the walls are tight and fertilizer sacks are hung 
from the fronts of the shelves the space enclosed will be found to 
be a fine place in summer to root large Croton and other cuttings 
with nearly all their leaves, as it can be kept dark and close with 
such degree of moisture as is needed. Such large cuttings make 
fine plants almost at once. 
i Reinforced |= 
i—| Concrete 
“| ench 
[] Five Foot Border 
PLAN FOR A SIMPLE PLANT HOUSE. 
End elevation, showing how a substantial building for use in Florida can be put up at 
small expense. It may be covered with glass or slats. (Fig. 5) 
On the south side of the slat house, or in any well-sheltered 
spot nearby, it is an excellent plan to have a glass covered frame, 
even if of only a single sash. In this, if it is exposed to the sun 
and well covered on cold nights, many very tender things can be 
kept through the winter that would perish out of doors or in an 
ordinary slat house. Such things as the Dieffenbachias, He- 
migraphis and the Fittonias are sometimes killed by cold when 
there is no actual frost. Cuttings of many tropical plants—not 
all—can be rooted in such a frame in winter if it is handled rightly, 
and seeds of the more tender things can be started. Where a 
large collection of plants is to be propagated and cultivated a 
glass-covered house is very convenient and almost necessary. 
It may be made in the simplest form by sinking in the ground, 
say a couple of feet, a pit the size of the future structure. Then 
lengthwise through the middle of it a trench about three feet wide 
is to be excavated a couple of feet deeper. The building may be 
