A Grecnhotisc for a Short Purse. 77 



care of a greenhouse for a short purse, would soon induce the owner 

 thereof to find it long enough to indulge a growing taste more freely, 

 and the little house, as in the writer's experience, become an appen- 

 dage to something greater. 



Nor must the value of such a house for starting seed be forgotten. 

 Many fine jolants for the following summer were groWn from seed 

 planted in boxes Christmas week, and achimenes potted in early 

 March were truly splendid, from July to November, without any hot- 

 bed to start them, or extra heat in any way. 



The general treatment was to keep dry in winter, watering sparingly 

 on bright days, give all the air possible, keep down insect life by fumi- 

 gation with tobacco, and to shade in summer from ten until three 

 o'clock, which is more important than the use of the cover in the 

 winter. The cover should be removed during the same hours exactly 

 in the colder part of the year, lowering before the solar heat has been 

 much diminished in the progress of the afternoon, and not raising early 

 in the morning to allow the sun's rays to strike fiercely on chilled plants, 

 but onlv after they have gradually penetrated the covering. This is con- 

 veniently done, in the writer's larger house, as follows : A cover of heavy 

 ship canvas is made to fit the whole roof, and fastened firmly along the 

 middle to the ridge-^Dole ; it rolls up on either side at pleasure, by ropes 

 attached to booms, to which the canvas is fastened at the lower edge ; 

 these ropes pass through a double block at the top of the house on the 

 south, and come down to cleats at a convenient height. In half a min- 

 ute any required portion of the roof may be shaded or uncovered. It 

 is of course the non-conducting stratum of air between the canvas acd 

 glass, separated as they are by the half depth of the wooden slips in 

 which the glass is set, that enables us to secure so wonderful a regular- 

 ity of temperature, varied by the proper difference between night and day. 



Let us have greenhouses for short purses, and flowers all tlie year for 

 the people. 



PiTTSBORo' Scientific Academy, January 8, 1870. 



