260 MINNESOTA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



best for every purpose; a very wide house is objectionable on account of 

 not getting the plants near the glass, and if the benches are raised 

 enough to get the plants in a proper place, it is more work to care for 

 them. Climbing up and down the benches to work among plants is hard 

 work and takes more time than to be able to reach any place in the house 

 from the walks on the ground. My experience has taught me that a 

 house 16 feet wide in the clear is by far the best and most convenient to 

 work in. Have the roof slanting both ways, on one side the rafters 

 should be twelve feet long and on the other side eight feet, which will, 

 when the walls are three and one-half feet high, make the ridge board 

 about nine feet high. The long way of the rafters should be slanting to 

 the south. Have two walks and three benches, the side benches each 

 three feet wide and the walks each two feet wide, which will leave six 

 feet for the middle bench. In this way it is easy to see all plants on the 

 benches and get to them to clean and care for them. When it is conven- 

 ient I would certainly advise to build them that way. Any desired 

 length will do, but if it can be had 100 feet is best. 



The most convenient way to start a range of houses is to build so as to 

 connect them so as not to have to go out of doors to go from one house to 

 the other, which can be clone in the following way: 



Put the boiler shed on the northwest corner of your lot, and from there 

 run a head house running south either the whole length of your plant for 

 the future or any part of it, and it can be lengthened at any time. Have 

 the roof slope all to one side, that is to the west side. If the roof slants 

 both ways you will either have to connect your other houses with a valley 

 running up to the other roof or the snow and ice will drop on your 

 glass; but this way the ice will all slide from the west side. 

 In building a head house the wall facing west should be three feet 

 high with two and one-half feet upright glass on top of it, which will 

 make it five and one-half feet high, and the back wall should be three 

 and one-half feet with eight feet of glass on top, which will make it 

 eleven and one-half feet high, house to be eighteen feet wide. When 

 the wall on the back is made the whole plan of houses should be laid out 

 in it and the rafters put in to connect the other houses to them. When- 

 ever there is to be an addition made all there is to do is to cut a door in 

 the wall and connect to those rafters. These houses as described before 

 should run east from the head house and face south. The best and 

 cheapest way is to have them joined together with a gutter be- 

 tween them about twelve or fourteen inches wide. For the walls 

 set cedar posts; board on both sides; put tar paper and siding over 

 this, which will make as warm a wall as if built of brick and the 

 cost will not exceed one-third and will last for twenty years, if kept 

 well painted. All material above the wall, such as sash bars, gut- 

 ters, ridge board and purlins should be made of cypress, and can be 

 bought in Chicago all cut and fit, ready to put together, if exact plan 

 of house is sent. Any one acquainted with carpenter tools can put it 

 together without the help of experienced carpenters. In fact there are 

 only a very few carpenters that know much about building greenhouses. 

 I will not say much about hotbeds, for I think the greenhouses will 

 eventually take the place of hotbeds. There are many vegetable garden- 

 ers now that build greenhouses out of their hotbed sashes, for they can 



