AND COKSEEVATORT. 7 



Premising that a well-built house of small dimensions is to 

 be preferred to a badly-built house of great extent, it may be 

 well to suggest that it is a very easy matter to lengthen a liouse, 

 but a rather difficult matter to increase its width. Therefore 

 let the house be wide enough in the first instance, as you may 

 increase its length to any extent that your land and purse will 

 allow. It is well also to select, if possible, a site adapted for a 

 range of houses, should it be some day hence determined to 

 increase the area of glass. We never know what our desires 

 and intentions may be to-morrow or the day after next, and 

 therefore, though it may seem at this moment that the green- 

 house in course of erection will suffice for the rest of our lives, 

 we may in a year or so propose to build another, and perhaps 

 yet another, and be compelled to plant them in all sorts of odd 

 corners, where they will be difficult to get at, and, perhaps, 

 impossible to heat them all with one boiler. A systematic and 

 conveniently arranged group of substantial plant houses, how- 

 ever plain and unpretending, are a credit to any garden, but 

 houses of all shapes and sizes, flung all over the place, as if 

 sown by the tempest, are not creditable, and it v>ill be a won- 

 derful thing indeed if they do not prove to be as inefficient as 

 they are inconvenient. A greenhouse in a corner may be snug 

 and useful, but for superior plant-growing there is nothing like 

 a roomy and airy space on a dry subsoil, or, if the situation is 

 low and damp, on a raised and well-drained platform. 



The span-roofed house with low pitch of roof is to be pre- 

 ferred for all general purposes ; but the lean-to is not to be 

 despised. One advantage of the lean-to is that it turns to good 

 account the shelter and warmth of an existing wall, and in pro- 

 portion to the covered area is cheaper than a span. It is not 

 an easy matter to grow perfect specimen plants in a lean-to 

 roofed house, and it is not always possible to ventilate such a 

 house with equal ease and efficiency as a span of the same area. 

 But what we lose in one way we gain in another; and a lean-to 

 with long rafters resting on a high and stout wall, with a south 

 aspect, may be made much of as a vinery, and produce first- 

 rate grapes, without the expenditure of so much as a farthing 

 in seven years on artificial heat. The best house we have ever 

 had for substantial work of the useful kind — for keeping and 

 propagating bedders, for the production of grapes and cucum- 

 bers, for safe keeping of a number of stove-plants, and for 

 growing toauitoes and melons — was a lean-to with a low roof 



