360 CROP GROWING AND CROP FEEDING 



THE FORCING HOUSE. 



The character of the house needed will depend largely on the crop to be 

 forced. Such dwarf growing crops as radishes, snap beans and asparagus 

 need low and compact houses, while crops like tomatoes and cucumbers require 

 more head room in the house. Long, narrow structures, such as can be made 

 with the ordinary hotbed sashes, with side walls of plank nailed to posts four 

 feet high and wooden gutters, to which each alternate pair of sashes are 

 fastened to form rafters to the ridge pole, and the others hinged at the 

 bottom to the gutter and fastened by iron straps punched with holes so that 

 they can be elevated for ventilation, and one walk through the centre just 

 giving room under the ridge for head room and two sicte benches, can be made 

 cheaply, and will make admirable houses for radishes or beans on the side 

 benches. The heating, if funds are not plentiful, can be done with brick fur- 

 naces set in a pit at the end of the house, and a brick flue taken around under 

 the side benches to a chimney at the furnace end. If the house is much over 

 fifty feet long there had better be a furnace at each end running directly to a 

 chimney at the other, for a flue over 100 feet long is of little value. The 

 best, and, in the long run most economical, mode for heating, is by hot water 

 boiler and pipes, so as to give a uniform heat through all the house. The tyro 

 at forcing will generally make the mistake of running too much heat, and the 

 heat is harder even for an experienced man to regulate in a house that de- 

 pends on a furnace and flue than in a house heated by hot water. Where 

 means will afford it will always be better to have houses properly constructed 

 by an experienced greenhouse builder and designed for the crop for which 

 they are to be used. 



For the winter forcing of tomatoes, which is one of the chief crops 

 grown under artificial conditions, a very different house should be made. 

 For this purpose we prefer a full-span roofed house twenty feet wide, and 

 ten feet high to the ridge in the centre. This will give a bench on each side 

 near .the glass, two walks and a bed in the centre or rather a floor space on 

 which the pots or boxes in which the plants forced are grown. The side 

 benches can be used for the forcing of snap beans, which require about the 

 same heat as tomatoes. In the South a house for winter radishes will be 

 better merely with a flue, since it will only be during cold snaps that any 

 fire heat will be needed. In fact, if much is given there will be more leaves 

 than radishes, and the low house will be better for them than the higher one, 

 as they need to be kept close to the glass. The span-roof house should run 

 north and south in length, so that both the morning and afternoon sun can 

 be had. A small sash-house, with a flue, is essential to any market garden 



