January, 1908 



THE CANADIAN HORTICULTURIST 



13 



gutter like that, I would be very much 

 troubled with snow. I would prefer 

 one large house, thirty feet in width, 

 . standing alone. 



R' Mr. Fraser.— These things work out 

 ccording to the location in which one 

 Ives. We have found it to be to our 

 dvantage, when we build an extra 

 house, to leave a space between that 

 and the other house of a little more 

 than is necessary, in order to have 

 room to drive through with the team, 

 and in this space we have a protected 

 warm place for hardening the plants. 



There are some houses in our section 

 heated with hot water, and they work 

 very satisfactorily. Where the house 



centre of it, using the earth to bank it 

 around the outside. The sash was 

 made for sixteen by sixteen glass, and 

 we have two sashes joined together 

 by hinges, so that they could be folded 

 up and put away. Sometimes we had 

 four inches deep of earth, and some- 

 times seven by seven of earth to each 

 plant. Of course, these plants were 

 heavy to handle. We found a con- 

 venient way to handle them by simply 

 opening the sash on the outside and 

 driving along with the team. These 

 houses were easy to ventilate; that is 

 only practical for a cheap house. 



Q. — Which would you think was the 

 most economical for vegetable grow- 



up to ten degrees higher than it will the 

 other one at the same time of day. 



A Portion of Mr. Fraser's Greenhouses at Leamington 



large, it is not practical to heat with 

 [lot water, because it won't circulate, 

 but some of the large American growers 

 are using hot water in the ordinary 

 return -flue boiler, and then pump the 

 water through the pipes. Of course, 

 that is only practical where it is a large 

 plant. They claim that where they 

 have a large plant, it is very satisfac- 

 tory. The water has' got to go, and 

 |very portion of the house is heated 

 erfectly. 



We first began with very low houses, 

 but we found that there was not suf- 



ient air in them. I would rather 



ive a house fairly high, except in a 

 ise where it was intended to grow 

 lants only for setting out in the field, 

 we did when we first started. We 

 found that we could build a very cheap 

 house by taking posts and setting 

 them in the ground about ten feet 

 apart, eighteen inches high, and spik- 

 ing planks on the inside, running up 

 the ridge with about one-third pitch, 

 and then digging out a trench in the 



ing, a house forty feet, or two houses 

 twenty feet wide, open underneath? 



A. — If I was not going to have a 

 house more than forty feet wide, I 

 think I would make just one house. 

 It would be wide up to thirty-five feet 

 anyway for one house. 



Q. — You think that would be prefer- 

 able to small ones? 



A. — Yes, except where two houses 

 might come in handy if you wanted 

 to use one at a higher temperature. 



Q. — I mean to have them connected? 



A. — I think I would prefer the one 

 house. 



Q. — Which would you take, a large 

 one or a small one? 



A. — The big one is the easiest to 

 heat. When you get a large house 

 heated, it will not cool off so fast, but 

 it takes longer to heat. 



Mr. Delworth. — You have a larger 

 body of air in there? 



Mr. Fraser. — In our case, we get 

 more benefit from the sun. It shines 

 in the sides of the house and heats it 



Sparro-ws Destroying Buds 



Peter Barrett, Truro, N.S. 



During the past few years I have been 

 noticing the increasing number of house 

 sparrows and the mischief being done 

 by them on the red and white currant 

 bushes. Already one-half or two-thirds 

 of the buds have been picked off this 

 season by these birds and they still keep 

 at it so long as there are buds left or 

 leaves put forth in the spring. I first 

 discovered them doing the mischief some 

 years ago, in the fall, when hard, dry 

 frost set it. I was inclined to spare 

 them as food for them was scarce, but 

 apparently they were worse when the 

 buds began to open in the spring. Now, 

 however, when the mild weather is pre- 

 vailing, the birds seem bent on destroy- 

 ing all the buds of these bushes. 



Bushes, five feet high, that ought to 

 have yielded in the past, and for years to 

 come, eight pounds of fruit per bush 

 annually, are destroyed; some of them 

 I dug up. I thinned out the others and 

 hoped for better results from open 

 bushes. But, alas, the bushes being 

 near a spruce hedge, were at a disad- 

 vantage. A snowdrift destroyed them. 

 The sparrows find shelter in a hedge. I 

 then set out bushes in an open, exposed 

 view, but find that the birds are still 

 destroying the buds on them. 



Potato pits should be made on dry 

 ground so that the bottom of pits will not 

 be wet. They should be about two and 

 a half feet deep by three feet wide and 

 any length desired^ The potatoes then 

 should be put in the trench and covered 

 well with straw with eight to 10 inches 

 of earth on the straw. When hard 

 weather sets in, the pits should be cov- 

 ered with a foot of manure. 



At a meeting of the Toronto branch of the 

 Ontario Vegetable Growers' Association, the 

 following ofTicers were elected for the ensuing 

 year: Pres., Thos. Delworth, Weston; vice- 

 pres., C. Gibbard, Doncaster; sec.-treas., F. F. 

 Reeves, Humber Bay; executive committee, 

 A Shuter, Bracondale; R. Larkin, Toronto; 

 J \V Rush, Humber Bay; C. Plunkett, Wood- 

 bridge; and H.J. Sharpley, Bracondale; directors 

 on provincial board: C. Aylmer, Sr., Humber 

 Bay; las. Dandridge, Humber Bay; F.F.Reeves, 

 Humber Bay; J. W Rush, Humber Bay; John 

 McKay, Doncaster; C. Gibbard, Doncaster; J. 

 J Brown, Humber Bay: auditors, Ed. ^gle. 

 Weston, and A. Shuter, Bracondale. Mr. Thos. 

 Delworth was apixiinted representative on the 

 board of the Canadian National Exhibition. 



The annual meeting of the Ottawa branch of 

 the Ontario Vegetable Growers' Association 

 was held last month, at which the following 

 officers were elected; Pres. D. Smith; vice- 

 pres., W. Trick; secretary, T. Mockett, repre- 

 sentative on provincial board, I. A Farquliar- 

 son, Hull. I 



