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7'HE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST . 



stove, we have our furnaces in the cellar. 

 You say, ' Well, what are you going to do 

 with hot air? ' You can do something with 

 hot air, but not so much as with hot water ; 

 and there is no furnace, whether for wood 

 or coal, in which you cannot put a little coil 

 and carry that into the small conservatory 

 and give it a generous, even heat which will 

 give you beautiful flowers. You try to grow 

 a certain class of flowers or roses, say carna- 

 tions or violets, in an ordinary room, you 

 can't do it satisfactorily. Your roses will 

 be overcome and devastated with the aphis, 

 and your carnations will fail to open up in 

 their beauty, and the violets will religiously 

 refuse to bloom satisfactorily and give their 

 fragrance. Why ? Because the tempera- 

 ture in the ordinary room is up and down, 

 up and down, and that is inimical to plant 

 prosperity. They don't like any better than 

 we do the see-saw of life, and they don't 

 prosper on it any better than we do. It is 

 irritating and they resent it at once. An- 

 other form of conservatory, which is more 

 desirable and cheap — remember, T am not 

 talking about one that is the most desirable 

 and expensive, nor one that with its span 

 and with its arched glass roof is one of the 

 luxuries which are only available to the rich 

 — but I am speaking of that which is avail- 



able to those of smaller means ; that is, to 

 build on the side of the house a lean-to con- 

 servatory ; and I have one in my mind's eye 

 now, 12 feet long, 8:^ feet wide, with lOo 

 plants that are doing sterling duty the whole 

 year round and supplying the house with a 



profusion of bouquets. That is a small 

 house, but you can have it anywhere lo, i2, 

 14 feet wide, and whatever length you want ; 

 but by giving a top glass to it you have 

 plants which grow straight up. It is just 

 the ideal thing for your carnations. They 

 open up beautifully without that crack on 

 the side which is so apt to be with side light 

 where they turn their faces. Having the 

 top light you bring your plants nearly to the 

 glass so as not to meet so much of the refrac- 

 tive rays, causing your plants to be healthier 

 and sturdier in growth, and the flowers 

 themselves to be richer in tint and sweeter 

 in odor. Carry out the same idea again in 

 regard to heating. If you don't put in a 

 heater by itself, carry from your house fur- 

 nace a coil and you can run your hot water 

 underneath your plant shelves, or you can 

 run it above it, or run each pipe along the 

 glass. The advantage they claim for the 

 latter place is that the air that comes chilled 

 from the glass becomes heated before it 

 falls on the flowers. Either take in a ver- 

 andah and make a conservatory of it or build 

 a lean-to and make a conservatory of it. 

 You can take the latter and make $100 

 build your concern, put in your heating ap- 

 paratus if you have not already a furnace in 

 your cellar, and stock it with a fair variety 

 of plants, which you could not grow in your 

 living rooms to advantage. Last year I saw 

 a little conservatory of that sort 9.6 ft. wide, 

 24 feet long, with 500 plants, with bouquets 

 of roses and carnations, geraniums, fuschias 

 and a large number of the other plants, sup- 

 plying not only the household but a church 

 on Sabbath day with bouquets, and furnish- 

 ing flowers for nearly all the sick families 

 within the radius of some three or four miles, 

 and I am positive that that did not cost $80 

 in its whole outfit. It was built and heated 

 by itself, which is the better way, because 

 then you can regulate it. One of the old 

 "Giant" stoves was taken, and in the top of 

 it there were five coils of inch pipe, and then 



