160 PRACTICAL FLORICULTURE. 



two boilers used are Lord & Burnham's No. 5. The cost 

 of a Rose house of this style, complete in everything, at 

 present prices, is about twenty dollars per running foot, 

 or $7,000 for the 350 feet ; if the frame had been con- 

 structed of wood it would cost ten to fifteen per cent. less. 

 There is no necessity for bottom heat for Roses, so 

 that it is best to have the pipes for heating run under 

 the front and back benches of the rose house, with none 

 under the middle benches, as in this way the space under 

 the middle benches may be utilized for other purposes. 



VENTILATION 



is an important matter. In a rose hoiise twenty feet 

 wide, sufficient ventilation will be obtained by having 

 lifting sashes, to the width of thirty inches, placed along 

 the whole of the roof on the south side, hinging them so 

 that they will open at the ridge pole. For this purpose 

 the patent ventilating apparatus should be used, which 

 costs from fifty to sixty cents per running foot. 



SOIL AND BENCHES. 



The soil in which the Roses are to be grown should not 

 exceed five inches in depth, the boards being so arranged 

 as to allow free drainage for the water. Perhaps the best 

 way to make the bottom of the bench is to use wall strips 

 or other boards, not to exceed four inches wide, leaving a 

 space of at least half an inch between the boards or strips, 

 so as to make certain of perfect drainage. The bottom 

 is first covered with thin sods, grass side down, or what 

 in our opinion is better, the new packing material called 

 " Excelsior," and then the soil is placed on to the depth of 

 four inches. This soil is made from sods cut three or four 

 inches thick from any good, loamy pasture land, well 

 chopped up, and mixed with one-fourth of well-rotted 

 cow dung to three-fourths of sods. In our own practice 

 we use, in addition to the cow manure, one-thirtieth part 



