92 PRACTICAL FLORICULTURE. 



covering. A glass sash three by six feet costs from $2,50 

 to $3, while a "sash" of the same size, made of the pro- 

 tecting cloth, would cost from twenty-five to thirty cents. 

 The covering by protecting cloth, however, could not be 

 very wei- sed in winter, as it would not sustain a weight 

 of snow, but 'lr, might be used to great advantage in the 

 Southern States. 



These greenhouses can also be used for all the purposes 

 of a hot-bed, thus: Soil placed to the thickness of four 

 inches on the benches will grow fine plants of all varieties 

 of vegetables, if the proper time in sowing the different 

 kinds is attended to presuming that the greenhouse has 

 no artificial heat or other than that produced by the sun's 

 rays which pass through the glass. In this latitude, Cab- 

 bage, Cauliflower and Lettuce seed had better be sown 

 about the 15th of March. By attention to ventilating and 

 watering, fine plants may be had in five or six weeks from 

 time of sowing, which will just bring them into the proper 

 season for planting in open ground. Tomatoes, Pepper, 

 and Egg-plant, and the tenderer kinds of flower seeds, 

 should not be sown much sooner than the end of April. 

 True, they would not be so early as if sown a month sooner 

 in a hot-bed, and replanted into the greenhouse bench 

 in May, but if no hot-bed is at hand, the protection of 

 the greenhouse over these tender plants in May will give 

 satisfactory results, if earliness is not particularly desired. 



I have so many inquiries about the heating and general 

 construction of cheap greenhouses, that I am compelled 

 to give instructions which are known now to nearly every 

 one in and around our large cities. Yet, simple though 

 the matter may be to us who see so much of it, it is evi- 

 dently perplexing enough, when they come to construct, 

 for those who have nothing to copy from. Those of us 

 who write on such subjects too often take for granted that 

 those for whom we write know something about the mat- 

 ter, when for the most part they really know nothing. 



