SUBURBAN RESIDENCES. 115 



ground. In this space the proper soils and manures may be kept, a dung- 

 bed for bringing forward plants, or a pit for the same purpose, and for forcing 

 cucumbers, growing melons, &c. It is also necessary, wherever plants are 

 grown under glass or kept in pots, that this reserve ground should have a 

 back door, or communication with a public road, otherwise than through the 

 house, for the supply of dung for hot-beds, soils, fuel, and other articles 

 required. The possession of a cucumber or melon frame adds greatly to the 

 interest of every suburban garden ; and there need scarcely be one, however 

 small, without it; for, on a small scale, where there is only one bed, if there 

 is no back door, the dung may be carried through the house in baskets. On 

 a larger scale, dung, except as manure, may be dispensed with ; and tlie 

 heating of cucimiber-frames and pits eftected by flues, or, what is greatly 

 preferable, by pipes of hot water. Wherever there is a green-house, it ought, 

 if possible, to be connected with one of ihe living-rooms of the house ; and 

 it might frequently be so arranged, that in a vault or cellar underneath this 

 green-house, rhubarb, sea- kale, chicory, and other vegetables that are eaten 

 in a blanched state, might be Ibrced ; or mushrooms grown throughout the 

 year. When this is attempted, however, there ought to be no communication 

 between the cellar and the green-house ; nor any openings in the former that 

 will admit the air from it into the living-rooms ; such air being always over- 

 charged with moisture, and having generally an earthy disagreeable smell. 

 Some possessors of suburban gardens have a taste for forcing different kinds 

 of fruit, more especially grapes and peaches ; and some even might wish to 

 grow pine-apples. All this may be effected in a suburban garden almost as 

 well as farther in the country ; because the operator has a greater command 

 of the air enclosed by the glass case, than he has of the exterior smoky 

 atmosphere ; and, however paradoxical it may seem, it would be easier to 

 grow a good crop of pine-apples under glass in a back garden in Cheapside, 

 than it would be to produce a good crop of grass in the open air in tlie same 

 garden, or to keep there a smooth closely-covered turf. The principal con- 

 sideration with respect to forcing-houses in small suburban gardens is, the 

 difficulty of placing them so that they shall obtain the full influence of the 

 sun, from its first appearance in the morning till sunset. Even in large 

 suburban gardens in large, towns, it is next to impossible to accomplish this, 

 from the proximity of houses th.'it either prevent the morning sun from 

 shining on the glass so soon as it otherwise would do ; or, what is still more 

 injurious, that intercept its rays between two and four o'clock in the after- 

 noon, during which period, in towns, they have generally, from the compara- 

 tive clearness of the atmo^phere, the greatest power. Trees, also, in adjoin- 

 ing gardens, are often very injurious ; and there is yet another drawback, 

 which is the road dust, and small particles of soot, which, in dry windy wea- 

 ther, are floating in the atmosphere, and, settling on the glass roof, lessen the 

 quantity of light that penetrates it. All these circumstances ought to be 

 taken duly into consideration, before the occupier of a suburban garden ven- 

 tures to erect forcing-houses for ripening fruits. 



176. The green-house. — Whatever may be the aspect of the house, a green- 

 house may be projected from it, unless it be due nortii ; and even in that case 

 there are many exceptions. We shall take the same extent of ground that 

 has already come under consideration, and shall suppose a green-house pro- 

 jected from the living-room, as shov/n at c, in ji(j, 49. ; in which a is the 



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