CHAPTER XIII. 



COLD VEGETABLE HOUSES. 



HOW TO BUILD AND HOW TO MANAGE THEM. 



" Make the most of it." 



HE management of cold frames for forcing 

 vegetables naturally involves considerable incon- 

 venient outdoor work during the season of raw 

 and chilly winds, cold rains and snows ; and 

 progressive market gardeners have sought to 

 relieve themselves of the unpleasant job, and at 

 the same time of a part of the real hard back- 

 aching work connected with it, by the substitution of plant 

 houses for plant beds. Such structures which afford glass pro- 

 tection not only to the crops but also to those who work among 

 them, have recently come in use among Eastern market garden- 

 ers, especially within marketing distance of the large cities near 

 the Atlantic Coast, and generally give entire satisfaction to the 

 owner, not only with respect to the personal convenience of doing 

 the work in them, but also from a financial standpoint. Next figure 

 presents a full view of a house of this kind — in reality nothing 

 more nor less than a piece of ground covered and enclosed by a 

 simple frame-work which supports a roof of common hot-bed 

 sashes. The sun rays and the protection that the glass affords 

 are the sole reliance of the grower for the heat needed to produce 

 his crops. Such houses, of course, will do very well in a climate 

 like that of the coast section from New York city southward ; 

 but where the winters are much longer and severer, and clear days 

 less the rule during the winter months, artificial heat will prob- 

 ably be indispensable. 



The construction of the building is very simple. Each side 

 of the roof consists of two tiers of common (3 by 6) hot-bed 

 sashes, the peak being 8 feet high, making the building about 

 20 or 21 feet in width, and three feet for every four sashes in 

 length. The sides are two feet high, and made of common rough 

 boards (of double thickness with building paper between) nailed 

 from the inside to short stakes driven into the ground at suitable 

 intervals. Banking with earth nearly up to where the sashes 

 begin, is a commendable practice. The end facing south or east 

 is glass, while the opposite end is made of boards, preferably of 



