MAINTENANCE 663 



desirable to have a perpetual inventory card showing for any given period 

 of time the original number of articles, the removals, renewals and the 

 quantities on hand. This card should also indicate the maximum or mini- 

 mum number of articles of the kind it is desirable to have on hand at all 

 times. This perpetual inventory card does not, of course, do away with 

 the necessity of the storekeeper and the secretary in the administrative 

 office keeping the necessary book property records. 



Greenhouses. In the Chapter on "Horticulture," page 670, Mr. Mulford 

 notes that " in park departments with a maintenance fund of less than $50,000 

 or less than $100 per acre or $1.00 per capita, the expense of maintaining a 

 greenhouse is seldom warranted. If $50,000 provides maintenance in excess 

 of $100 per acre and $1.00 per capita of the people to be served by the 

 park system, a greenhouse may sometimes be justified." 



This observation suggests the point at which any given park system 

 may be warranted, economically, in providing a greenhouse or houses as 

 a part of their maintenance equipment. There are a number of examples 

 throughout the country of small park departments erecting and maintain- 

 ing greenhouses where the cost of erection and maintenance is out of pro- 

 portion to general maintenance resources and where it would have been 

 more economical to have purchased some of the plants needed, grown others 

 in hotbeds or cold frames, or used more types of plants that can be success- 

 fully grown without any preliminary propagating aid. 



The following notes and illustrations on horticultural buildings are 

 taken from an excellent article on the subject by L. W. C. Tuthill in Parks 

 and Recreation, Vol. VIII, No. 6, July-August 1925. 



Planning. In planning the greenhouse be sure to give it space enough 

 so additions can be made economically. Locate the boiler so that with sub- 

 sequent additions it will continue to be in a central location and the heating 

 pipes can have a balanced distribution. Do not skimp on the size of the 

 boiler or the amount of radiation. 



Location. Select a spot away from trees and buildings so as to secure 

 all available sunlight. Run the main axis of the house as nearly east and 

 west as possible so that the sun will travel parallel with the ridge for most 

 of the year, thus giving all the benches the greatest amount of light. 



Width. Do not build too narrow. Small narrow houses are not only 

 difficult to ventilate without chilling the plants, but cost more in propor- 

 tion than larger ones. Twenty-five years ago, the two-bench, one-walk 

 house was thought quite the thing for parks and cemeteries where large 

 amounts of bedding plants were grown. Then came the eighteen-foot width, 

 and now the tendency is toward twenty-five feet and wider. The forty-foot 

 house in length of one hundred feet and up makes a splendid proposition. 



