10 THE FLORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 
To command success a house must be specially set apart for them. 
There is no occasion to have an expensive structure ; it may, indeed, 
be of the plainest description, provided it is moderately roomy, 
substantial, and efficiently heated. The house should have a span 
roof, and a very convenient size for an amateur not requiring an extra 
large supply would be one of the following dimensions :— Width, 
fifteen feet ; height at the sides, five-and-a-half feet; and the height 
at the apex, fourteen feet. The length must be proportionate to 
the requirements of the cultivator; but it should not be less than 
thirty feet, but forty or fifty feet will be better. During the 
winter, the house will form a most delightful promenade, as the 
trees will then be in full bloom, and also bearing a crop of ripe fruit, 
and the temperature required by the trees will be most agreeable on 
a dull cheerless day. The side-lights should be thirty inches in depth, 
and rest upon two feet of brickwork, making in all five and a-half, 
feet. The sides may consist wholly of brickwork, but as the 
lights give to the house a lighter and more pleasing appearance, they 
should be employed, unless the slight additional cost is a matter for 
Serious consideration. or heating a house of the dimensions given 
above, six rows of four-inch pipes will be required, and three rows 
to be placed next the wall on each side. Ventilators, eighteen 
inches in depth and three feet in length, must be provided and fixed 
three feet apart on each side of the ridge, so that the house can be 
ventilated on either side, and in hot weather on both sides. 
‘ Before laying out the interior of the house, it must be deter- 
mined whether the trees are to be planted in borders, or grown in 
tubs, boxes, or pots. If they are not to be planted out, pave the 
floor with tiles, or form a pathway with the tiles, and concrete the 
remaining surface, to form a hard floor upon which to stand the 
pots or tubs. If, on the other hand, it is intended to plant in 
borders, mark out a border on each side four feet six inches in width, 
the outer edge to be twelve inches from the wall, and this will leave 
a four-feet space in the centre for a pathway. 
A depth of two feet will suffice for the soil, and twelve inches 
of this should be below, and twelve inches above the level of the 
floor, and to keep the soil in its place, a neat wall, four and a half 
inches in thickness will be required all round the bed. To prevent the 
soil becoming sour through the water applied to the trees remaining 
in a stagnant state, place a layer of broken bricks six inches in 
thickness underneath the bed, and in taking out the old soil it will 
be necessary to excavate it to a depth of eighteen inches. To form 
the beds, procure good turfy loam, taken from an old pasture or 
common, to a depth of three or four inches, and after it has been 
broken up rather roughly, add to it old hot-bed manure and leaf- 
mould, quite free from pieces of wood and bark; the proportions to 
be one part each of leaf-mould and manure to every four parts of 
loam. They require the same compost when in pots or tubs, and 
the soil to be rammed firm with the potting-stick, for it is impossible 
to secure a satisfactory growth, if they are potted loosely. 
Standards or bushes, with stems from two to three feet high, are 
the most suitable for culture under glass, as they naturally form 
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