MONTHLY CALENDAR. 189 



greater pretensions add to this a conservatory, wliioh is a structure of the 

 same character as the greenhouse, but larger and more ornamental, being, in 

 fact, the show-room of the estabUshment, to which the finest plants are 

 removed when coming into bloom. When we frame our calendarial directions, 

 so as to assist the tyro in the management of these numerous structures, 

 we shall best convey them by assuming the existence of a range of houses 

 combining economy of space with perfect efficiency, the whole or any part of 

 which can be constructed at a moderate cost. In a future chapter the details 

 of construction and cost, with its various arrangements for heating and ven- 

 tilation, will be given ; but, in the meanwhile, we may state that it consists of 

 a span-roofed house, ranging east and west, which may be 18 feet wide by 30 

 feet in length, having a central pathway, with beds on either side for plants to 

 be planted in, or stand in pots ; one half of the house being a greenhouse, 

 the other half a hothouse, separated from each other by a glass partition. On 

 the north and south of the house is a range of pits 12 feet wide, those running 

 parallel with the hothouse being warm pits, and those alongside the greenhouse 

 cold pits, 



466. The whole range of houses are heated by a coil of 3-inch pipes in the 

 hothouse, and 2-inch pipes in the pits. Under the beds in the hothouse, and 

 also in the warm pits, are hot-water tanks heated by 2-inch pipes, these being 

 connected with the boiler fitted up at the north extremity of the hothouse ; 

 stop-cocks or valves attached to each set of pipes, permitting of the whole or 

 part of the apparatus being used, as convenience requires. 



467. This efficient range of buildings may be connected with the dwelling- 

 house by a conservatory, or arcade covered with glass, with great advantage, 

 should the establishment possess such adjuncts; or it may be isolated 

 from it in the melon-ground. 



468. The Hothouse, or, as Mr. Errington calls the forcing-houses, the 

 *' persuading-houses," may be devoted to the cultivation of orchids, for which 

 it is admirably adapted ; or it will yield abundance of roses, melons, cucum- 

 bers, vines in pots, or, in fact, anything to which it is applied. 



469. The Greenhouse may be heated by continuing the pipes to any required 

 degree, according to the number of pipes introduced. 



470. The Cold pits, adjoining the greenhouse, will be found very useful for 

 gi'owing mignonette, violets, stocks, and other things which only require 

 protection. In the Warm pits, flowers, such as roses, achimenes, Poinsetia pul- 

 •cherrima, cinerarias, heaths, epacris, primulas, azaleas, acacias, camellias, 

 arums, chrj'santhemums, mignonette, cyclamens, and other plants required 

 ■at this season for the windows, the conservatory, and for cut flowers, or any 

 other of the multifarious uses to which a pit can be applied in winter, 



471. Forcing -houses. — The routine business here during the month com- 

 mences in earnest in January ; a few plants of all kinds for ornamenting 

 the house and conservatory should be introduced and started gradually; 

 Indian azaleas, bulbs, roses, and lilacs, if already somewhat advanced, should 

 have others brought forward to succeed them. Towards the end of the 



