222 How to Make a Flower Garden 



woman, somehow, being able to grow plants to perfection in living-rooms 

 under adverse circumstances. A greenhouse is nothing more than a tool 

 to a gardener, and it is difficult to see why greenhouses should be placed so 

 prominently in gardens, and often made so pretentious. They would mostly 

 be impro\'ed by a coat of dark-green paint, which would help to eliminate 

 them from the landscape; or, if near the house, they might be of some 

 colour which would make them as inconspicuous as possible. 



Having satisfied oneself as to the need of a house, the ways and means 

 are in order. Here, as in most garden matters, the cost is on a sliding scale 

 which bears no relation to the pleasure to be derived. One can spend several 

 hundred dollars on a small house, or, if he is handy with tools, can, by using 

 sash, cover as much space as one would care to look after at an expense 

 for materials of fifty to seventy-five dollars. A good hot-water apparatus 

 with two-inch pipes should cost as much more. This will cost nothing to 

 place, if pipes are bought cut to right lengths. 



There are makeshifts for heating, but for a small house or a large one 

 there is nothing as satisfactory, to my mind, as hot-water circulation from 

 a self -feeding heater. These heaters need no attention oftener than twice 

 daily. One does not care to be tied up to a fad, and a greenhouse so 

 heated can be left to the care of almost any one. I have heated a house 

 fifteen by eighteen feet for about ten years with such a stove with an 

 average of less than twenty-five pounds of coal per day. 



In a greenhouse, as with other things, it is not what you put in, but 

 what you get out of it, that counts. The "cropper" finds his fun in practical 

 results, while another has just as much fun in letting things grow and seeing 

 visions without tangible results; while another man, who should be an ento- 

 mologist, persecutes bugs to his joy. (There are insects to be found in a 

 greenhouse sometimes.) 



There are some advantages and some disadvantages in attaching a 

 greenhouse to a dwelling, but the man who likes his fling and wants a work- 

 house had better have it at a little distance, where his ideas of order will not 

 receive critical attention. In this case he will be doing about the best for 

 his comfort if the house is only shortly distant from the dwelling, when the 

 heater may be placed in the cellar, to the saving of room, and the saving of 

 comfort on stormy nights. 



Do not get hot yourself when told that "you should see Mr. Brown's 

 flowers," when you know they are chickweed as compared with yours. 



