92 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



and on top of these legs fix a string piece of tlie same timber.. 

 The corresponding string on the back can usually be attached to 

 the posts or frame of the house, or may be supported on legs the 

 same as the front. Bands can be fastened to the string pieces for 

 sides of beds of whatever depth desired, and the bottoms made 

 with 1-inch or l|-iuch boards or strips laid in loose, supported at 

 either end by the string pieces. One of these bottom pieces 

 should be nailed in fast to every four feet in length to hold the 

 bench together in width. Where the beds are of considerable 

 depths the sides can be secured by light wrought iron braces with 

 slight expense. This arrangement of loose bottoms secures perfect 

 drainage, is convenient for cleaning the bottoms when replanting, 

 and for replacing any decayed pieces. The same general style of 

 construction, with the substitution of Georgia pine or cypress 

 lumber in place of the hemlock, omitting the timber on the ground 

 and supporting the legs on piers or on the edge of a cement walk, 

 is probably the best sort of construction that can be adopted 

 where wood alone is used for the bench. Iron frames with slate, 

 tile, or brick bottoms, have come into very general use. They 

 are usually made of wrought iron, light angles and tees, framed 

 together and supported by upright pieces of gas pipe. Slate 

 bottoms are considered the best for tables where the plants are 

 grown in pots. For the bottoms of beds, common hard-burned 

 red brick are durable and inexpensive, affording perfect drainage, 

 and possessing all the advantages for plant growth as to absorp- 

 tion of warmth and moisture under the soil, in a degree superior 

 to that of any other bottom. For propagating and other beds 

 requiring special bottom heat, the brick bottoms have decided 

 advantages in retaining and evenly distributing the heat to the 

 sand or soil of the bed. As each brick is capable of absorbing 

 and retaining nearly a pint of water, such a bottom serves to dry 

 the bed when too wet, and to add moisture before it becomes too 

 dry. 



Lumber. — The durability of a greenhouse depends largely 

 upon the quality and kind of wood which is used in it. Soft white 

 pine, free from knots, sap, and shakes, has until recently been 

 considered the best lumber to use. Houses are now standing and 

 in good repair, l)uilt of this wood, which are from twenty to thirty 

 years old. But such material, which was formerly plenty in the 



