HOUSING PLANTS. GliEENHOTJSES. 137 



all the vast catalogue of half hardy plants so necessary 

 to fill the garden in summer, must be taken up in 

 tvinter, often requiring scarcely any care beyond mere 

 housing until the settled warmth of spring renders it 

 Safe to adorn the beds and borders \vith them again. 



Making young plants from cuttings creates anothei 

 urgent need for indoor storing places, if we want to 

 keep the flower garden supplied without great outlay in 

 buying fresh plants every season. 



A greenhouse without artificial heat is sufficient for 

 most useful purposes, to aid the flower garden by raising 

 seedlings and cuttings of all common, and of most half- 

 hardy plants, and by keeping a sufficient number of 

 plants alive through the winter. Now that glass is so 

 much cheaper than it used to be, a little greenhouse 

 may be made for very small cost, and agricultural papers 

 teem with advertisements, highly illustrated, to set forth 

 plans and prices to suit all purchasers. If the green- 

 house be so placed as to be entirely for utility, it may 

 have a pit in which to make a hot-bed for seed and 

 cuttings, or sinking pots requiring heat, or it may be 

 fitted only with shelves and stages. The frost should 

 be kept out ; the thermometer should never go below 

 35, which it is often difficult to prevent in severe winter 

 nights. It would be a superfluous reminder to say 32 

 is freezing point. Many plants for which we especially 

 want a greenhouse to help the flower garden will bear 

 several degrees below that, but any simple contrivance 

 of covering the glass, linings of manure, or burning a 

 lamp (with the glass shaded), to keep the warmth up to 

 35, will render the aid of the work to be done by the 

 greenhouse all the more valuable. It must have good 

 light, means of giving plenty of air, and the aspect 

 should be south, south-east, or south-west. For keeping 

 plants growing the temperature should not get below 

 45. Between the cold of night and the warmth of day, 

 sometimes, of course, aided by sunshine, there may be 

 a rise from 10 to 15. In summer give plenty of air. 



Watering should be done seldom in winter, and early 

 in the day, but not too early in the morning. Let the 



