VARIOUS METHODS OF HEATING DESCRIBED IN DETAIL. 225 



For amateurs wishing- to "try to grow many things," but 

 who have little time or money to spare for such purposes, one 

 of these pits is just the thing he requires. A small pit, of this 

 nature, with a very little attention, would keep a considerable 

 number of green-house plants over the winter, and enable him 

 to preserve a plentiful stock of bedding-out plants, such as ver- 

 benas, petunias, calceolarias, heliotropiums, peristemons, and 

 many other pretty little things for the decoration of the flower- 

 garden in summer. How much more pleasant and profitable 

 would it be, for lovers of flowers, to have a little pit erected in 

 some snug corner of their garden, instead of losing all their 

 roses in winter, and storing their drawing-room plants, their 

 oranges, their camellias, their gardenias, oleanders, &c., into 

 the cellar, from which, of necessity, they are frequently taken 

 half dead. Such a pit as I allude to may, or may not, be made 

 to comprehend a narrow pathway along the back, this would 

 certainly be the most convenient, and this portion might be 

 covered with boards or shingles. This path would greatly facil- 

 itate the operations of watering, &c. Whether such a pit ought 

 to be sunk below the ground, or placed on a level with its 

 surface, will depend altogether upon the nature of the situation. 

 Thus, if the position be a dry one, or admits of being made so 

 by drainage, it should, by all means, be sunk two or three feet 

 below the surface. But if the situation be very damp, it would 

 certainly be bad policy to sink it so much ; for whatever advan- 

 tage it would gain in the way of protection, would be more than 

 counterbalanced by the dampness which would be unavoidable. 

 A pit, sunk in a dry situation, requires less fuel, even in the 

 severest winters, than people generally suppose ; and if covered 

 from the frost, and kept dry, many plants will live over winter 

 without fire at all. Plants are very much like animals, in re- 

 gard to warmth; when once accustomed to a high temperature, 

 they must have it continually ; but inure them to the cold of 

 autumn, and they will do with less heat in winter. This is 

 not saying that we can change the nature of plants,, and make 

 them to endure a lower temperature than they can possibly, 

 under any circumstances, bear. But we know that plants may 

 be brought into a condition to enable them to survive a much 



