THE ELOHAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 331 



moreover, to face the north. If it faces the south, the air within is 

 apt to become heated by the sun, and thus the plants are stimulated 

 into temporary growth at unpropitious seasons. 



" The necessity for a winter-house being dry seems to arise out 

 of the nature of vegetation, which being entirely passive cannot 

 resist the influence of the surrounding media. If the air or soil is 

 damp, plants exposed to them must absorb that moisture ; but, from 

 the lowness of the temperature of a winter-house, their powers of 

 digestion and assimilation are torpid, and, therefore, the water they 

 receive, instead of becoming impregnated with their system, stag- 

 nates in their cells and cavities, where it becomes putrid ; and as 

 soon as this takes place, the evil extends with rapidity, causing both 

 branches and stems to become rotten, for decay in plants is always 

 contagious, and will spread through all the parts with which it is 

 in contact until the renovated forces of vegetation restore the equi- 

 librium of chemical constituents, and tlms arrest contagion. 



" If the sides of such a pit are not hollow, it will be necessary to 

 guard them by an external covering or lining ; and even if they are 

 hollow, it may be necessary to do so in very severe winters. It is 

 essential that the material to be thus employed should not be liable 

 to fermentation, and should be as dry as possible. Stable litter, 

 grass mowings, tan, decayed leaves, are all bad materials. Dry 

 straw, fern stems, or boughs of fir-trees, are good materials, and so 

 is a mound of earth, a foot or eighteen inches thick, sloped so as to 

 throw off rain. If fermenting materials are employed, they are sure 

 to raise the temperature of the pit, and thus to raise the powers of 

 vegetation, which it is essential to guard against. 



u The plants which are to be preserved in such a pit should be 

 taken out of the ground and potted in the dry weather of October,* 

 and they should be exposed for a day or two to the sun before they 

 are finally arranged within it ; that is in order to render them as 

 dry as practicable before they are housed. 



" Supposing all the above-mentioned precautions to be taken, it 

 will only be necessary to open the sashes in dry weather for the 

 purpose of dissipating any further moisture that may collect ; light 

 should, however, be admitted, where it can be done without exposing 

 the plants to frost or rain ; but if they are quite torpid, as they 

 ought to be, they may remain shut up for weeks together. 



" Such being the best kind of hybernatory, it will not be difficult 

 For a gardener to devise substitutes for it. He who has no glazed 

 pit with hollow walls, may easily make a winter-house with very 

 rude materials. The walls may be made of earth, provided they are 

 thick enough, and the roof may be of thatched hurdles, or, what is 

 better, of oiled linen stretched on a wooden frame and guarded by 

 thatch ; or the walls may be formed by two rows of hurdles, having 

 the interval between them stuffed with dry straw or fern. In such 

 buildings pelargoniums, verbenas, and all such half-hardy plants 

 required for the decoration of borders may be safely stowed away ; 

 and even Alpine plants, which are in a growing state during the 



* The early part of this month will do, or any time before frost. 

 November, 



