CHAPTER XL1X 



THE FIRST ESSENTIALS 



THERE must he thousands of inexperienced amateur 

 gardeners who have set off gaily and light-heartedly on 

 the sea of greenhouse management, expecting by the aid 

 of a very little expenditure of time and money to achieve success, 

 and to reach the port of a greenhouse always warm and always gay. 



They have, I will undertake to say, been speedily disillusioned. 

 They have probably furnished their greenhouses with a nice array 

 of plants in September or October, and have been told that if they 

 " just keep out the frost " with the aid of an oil lamp set in the 

 centre of the greenhouse floor their success is assured. There could 

 be no greater mistake. I have tried the plan myself, and the 

 experiment has proved as disastrous and disappointing as it has 

 turned out to be expensive. 



In the first place, the lamp must be a very powerful one if it is 

 to " keep out the frost " during the severest spells of winter 

 weather, let alone maintain a temperature in which even the 

 hardiest greenhouse plants can thrive. In the next place you 

 may wake up one fine morning to find the glass of your green- 

 house black with pungent sooty smoke and your plants choked 

 and almost dead. If you are still determined to persist in your 

 attempt to achieve success with inadequate equipment you may 

 perhaps set to work as I have done to clean your glass and 

 staging, and to wash your plants in the hope that you may restore 

 them to their pristine beauty and freshness, and start again. 

 There will be a full supply of faith and hope in your heart, but 

 there will be very little charity left to lavish on the lamp that 

 has played you so scurvy a trick. 



After long and bitter experience you may be inclined to abandon 

 ao 417 



