The Canadian Horticulturist. 



'21 



Fig. 894 — Section of GBEENHorsK. 



When I first built the greenhouse I was at a loss to know how to heat so 

 so small a space, as I did not like the idea of using an oil stove, which is so 

 often recommended. I therefore utilized a small coal stove, placed the same in 

 the cellar, and made a coil of x-inch wrought iron pipe, for the inside of the 

 stove, then ran 75 feet of i^^ inch pipe through the cellar wall, and under the 

 bench, up to a small expansion tank in the corner, as shown in the cross section, 

 making a complete hot water system, the same as is used in the kitchen for 

 domestic purposes. The stove part was not very satisfactory ; when the fire 

 would leave the pipes the water would not heat properly to maintain the tem- 

 perature during the night. The second 

 year I looked around for something better 

 to heat with, and found it in Hitching & 

 Co.'s Domestic Water Heater, a small in- 

 expensive affair which did the work to 

 perfection with little or no trouble, and 

 which I could leave for ten or twelve 

 hours without attention, and feel satisfied 

 the temperature would not fall below 60°. 

 I have since sold the heater, and am now 

 using one of the same firm's base-burning 

 heaters. No. 23 ; in addition to heating 

 my greenhouse I heat two rooms in my dwelling. I mention the fact as it 

 reduces the cost of healing the greenhouse to a very nominal figure. 



The friend to whom I sold the Domestic Water Heater uses it to heat a 

 greenhouse (exposed on all sides) ten by fifteen feet, in a very satisfactory man- 

 ner. He uses it under one end of the bench, which is bricked off, about four 

 feet square, covers the brick work with iron, on which he puts sand and uses same 

 as a propagating bench, the door of the fireplace opens outside, and he finds it 

 works splendidly, with no dust or gas in the house. 



I would add that the i^ inch pipe I used under the bench was second- 

 hand material, purchased at scrap iron prices. 



The question naturally arises, what can a person grow in so small a place ? 

 I will tell you. With the aid of the cellar, which I use as a sort of cold storage 

 place, I am enabled to bring into bloom a fine display of flowering bulbs, or 

 sonre specimen plants, and there is scarcely a day during the winter when one 

 of the windows in my dwelling is without a plant or plants in bloom. It may 

 be quite a pretentious display of hyacinths, narcissus, jonquils or freezias, or it 

 may be a single plant of epiphyllum truncatum, azalea, rhododendron, or an 

 amaryllis of some choice variety. In addition to these I grow a few plants of 

 heliotrope, ageratum, sweet alyssum and other soft wooded plants, from which 

 my dining table is frequently supplied with cut flowers. From the blooming of 

 the Roman hyacinths and narcissus, just before the Christmas holidays, until 

 late in the spring, I am never without some blooming plant or bulb from my 

 small and inexpensive greenhouse. 



