PRACTICAL SUGGESTIONS. 103 



Various experiments have been tried with different colors 

 of glass, and curious and interesting results have been 

 obtained. Yet the conclusion is, as might have been 

 expected, that God has flooded the planetary system with all 

 the colors combined in the clear white light of the sun, as 

 best adapted to the wants of the vegetable as well as the 

 animal kingdom. Clear white glass is therefore to be sought 

 for ordinary culture. 



A simple brick furnace, with flue or pipe, will answer a 

 good purpose for heating a short house. Yet the ease with 

 which heat can be distributed, by water-pipes, renders this 

 method by far the most practicable in most cases. It is a 

 very simple matter to connect a water-tank with the boiler, 

 with a sufficient head of water so as to water the plants by a 

 pressure through the boiler when the water is tepid, as is the 

 case during the daytime. 



For want of time we must pass the question of aeration, 

 the admission of fresh air, and the circulation of the air in 

 the house. In ordinary practice, the only concern seems to 

 be to let out the over-heated air. 



As was said at the commencement, the winter-culture of 

 plants is most unnatural. It involves unremitting watchful- 

 ness ; an hour's neglect is fatal to the enthusiastic painstaking 

 of a year. But given this steady, easy, watchful care, and 

 we secure more certain success than can be secured by any 

 ordinary culture in the natural way. A winter crop of grapes 

 is more certain than is a crop in the open field. With atten- 

 tion we can command all the conditions ; we can command 

 success. And it is surprising what an amount can be accom- 

 plished in a small space. Go into any good florist's establish- 

 ment and you shall find such quantities of roses, and of such 

 quality as are seen in no open gardens in this climate. I 

 have ripened a ton of Hamburg grapes, in the month of 

 May, from a house two hundred feet long by twenty-five feet 

 wide, which is at the rate of eight tons per acre. To these 

 considerations of certainty and of quantity, add the equally 

 important item of quality. In our rigorous northern homes 

 we have domesticated all the choicest exotics of the tropics. 

 We sit under the shade of the orange and the palm in the 

 bitterest days of winter. We arrange our most delicate, 



