THE FLORISTS MANUAL. 



37 



Begonia Feastii. 



trouble with these thin slates is that they 

 heat rather violently and cool very quick 

 ly. On these slates we have seen bricks 

 laid, and then the four inches of sand. 

 This is an excellent bed, keeping a mod 

 erate, uniform heat. There is also a 

 clay tile made some 12x18 inches and 

 one and a half inches thick. These make 

 an excellent bottom for the propagating 

 bed, much preferable to the slate. 



Whether the heat is supplied with hot- 

 water pipes or steam, you should have 

 control of them; that is, you should 

 have valves to turn the heat on or off as 

 desired. The heating pipes should be at 

 least eighteen inches below the floor of 

 the bed, so that the heat will be well 

 diffused and not strike the tile or slate 

 too violently on one spot. We have had 

 three 4-inch hot-water pipes in a bed 

 three feet six inches wide. It was too 

 much. Three 2-inch pipes would be 

 plenty, or two 1*4 -inch steam pipes. For 

 a bed six feet across three 1^4-inch steam 

 pipes would be ample, with valves on 

 every one. For the construction and 

 shape of the propagating house see 

 Greenhouse Building. 



BOUGAINVILLEA. 



The most useful species of bougain- 

 villea is the well known glabra, which 

 makes a fine greenhouse climber in any 

 house where the temperature does not 

 go below 50 degrees at night. The 

 flower is inconspicuous; it is the showy, 

 rosy-purple bracts of the flowers that 

 give the plants such an ornamental ap- 



terial to afford heat to plants. That, 

 however, is past and only the hot-water 

 and steam pipes are now used. 



You yet see, in many extensive places, 

 the propagating bench made of boards 

 and cypress boards would last many 

 years. If you wish to build more sub 

 stantially, then the walls could be 

 cement, or rather what should be&quot; called 

 concrete, six inches thick. If the walls 

 are of concrete then a frame should be 

 built into the wall every three or four 

 feet to afford a sliding shutter to let 

 heat escape from beneath the bed in 

 extreme cold weather. These openings 

 may be one foot to two feet long. If 

 your walls are wood then one of the 

 12-inch boards the whole length of the 

 bed can be hinged and can be closed or 

 open, just as desired. It may be well to 

 say just here that in small establishments 

 the propagating bed is more often a 

 bench against a side wall. In larger 

 establishments, where cuttings are rooted 

 by the hundreds of thousands, the propa 

 gating bed is removed from the wall, is 

 perhaps six feet wide, with a path on 

 each. In this case openings should be 

 made on both sides of the bed. The 

 floor or bottom of the bed should be of 

 slate or slate and brick. A 1-inch board 

 would be a poor conductor of heat; in 

 fact, none at all. 



Across the walls should run pieces of 

 tee iron (not at all expensive) every 

 twelve inches. These will bear the slates 

 or tiles. Large slabs of slate are ex 

 pensive and we have used for years a 

 common roofing slate 12x24 inches. The 



Begonia Nitida. 



