194 EDIFICES USED IN HORTICULTURE. 



will be sufficient to carry off damp, and to prevent the ill effects of 

 the excessive heat from the plant-structure. Another point which 

 ought to be attended to in the construction of living-rooms behind 

 hothouses is, to have larger windows and more of them than is usual ; 

 and always to have them carried up to within a few inches of the ceil- 

 ing, in order that air may be admitted from the top as well as from 

 the bottom of the window. It would generally be better to build a 

 cottage for the young men wholly detached from the back wall, and to 

 have a good separate bedroom for each man. The sitting-room arrange- 

 ments for cooking, cleaning, &c., should likewise be made comfortable 

 and convenient. 



The fruit-room should have a double roof, or roof with a ceiling, a 

 hollow front wall, and double doors and windows, so as to maintain 

 an equable temperature. It should be divided into at least two apart- 

 ments, so completely separated from each other as to prevent the air 

 of that in which the early ripening fruits are placed from contami- 

 nating that in which the late ripening sorts are deposited. Both apart- 

 ments should be fitted up with broad shelves of open work of white 

 deal, or of some wood without resin or other qualities that would give 

 a flavour to the fruit ; and there ought to be bins or portable boxes 

 for preserving fruit packed in sand, fern, hay, bran, kiln-dried straw, 

 leaves or blossoms of the beech or chestnut, or other materials. The 

 fronts of the shelves should have a narrow ledge, on which temporary 

 labels can be pasted, indicating the names of the fruits, and when 

 they ought to be fit for use, &c. Where fruit is to be frequently 

 packed for sending to a distance, there should be a third apartment for 

 containing the packing materials, and for packing in. Where there is 

 danger from damp or heat, the back wall and floor can have vacuities 

 as in the journeyman's room, with stoppers to the outlets, to be used 

 in severe weather. 



The seed-room should adjoin the fruit-room at one end, and the 

 tool-house at the other. It should contain a cabinet fitted up with 

 drawers for seeds ; an open airy case, with drawers for bulbs ; shelves 

 for catalogues, a book-case, partitioned off, because moths are apt to 

 be introduced along with some kinds of seeds, for a garden library, 

 unless this is kept in the head gardener's house as a part of his furni- 

 ture ; a press for compressing dried herbs into cakes, to be afterwards 

 wrapped up so as to be air-tight in paper, and kept in drawers to 

 be taken out as wanted for the kitchen ; and a variety of minor 

 articles, some of which have been mentioned (p. 80), and others will 

 occur in practice. 



Root-cellar and other Conveniences. Underneath the fruit or seed- 

 room, if the soil is dry, there may be a cellar for preserving dahlia- 

 roots, bulbs, potatoes, &c. ; though, on a small scale, the seed-room 

 and some part of the sheds may serve as substitutes. A mushroom- 

 house, and a house for forcing rhubarb and succory, and for producing 

 early potatoes by a particular process which may be carried on in the 

 dark, may also form part of the back sheds ; and a supply of water by 

 a pump or well, or by a large cistern, supplied by an hydraulic ram or 



