PROPAGATING HOUSES AND PITS. 



" Who loves a garden ; loves a greenhouse too." COWPER. 



IN many small private gardens, no separate structure is 

 required for propagating purposes, one of the vineries or 

 cucumber -pits affording all the requisite accommodation a 

 common garden-frame, or a reduced form of it, being employed 

 for tender cuttings, or for choice seeds which require a close 

 and humid atmosphere. In large gardens, however, the pro- 

 pagating house is, or ought to be, a separate one ; and in the 

 hands of an intelligent cultivator it is at once one of the most 

 interesting, and at the same time most profitable, of all garden 

 structures. The size of the house must, of course, depend on 

 the requirements of the place; but it is advisable to have a 

 partition in the centre, and the hot-water apparatus should be so 

 arranged that both divisions can be heated separately, and while 

 one is kept at a tropical heat, the other may be of a greenhouse 

 temperature, so as to serve for the multiplication of hardy and 

 half-hardy trees, shrubs, annuals, or herbaceous plants. Span- 

 roofed houses are the best, but a lean-to house or pit also 

 answers well. The hot compartment will not require so much 

 air as the cool end, but it is always advisable to provide ample 

 ventilating apparatus at the time such structures are erected. 

 As to aspect, a position due east and west answers well, and 

 it should be sheltered from cold winds. As a rule, the 

 closer and more genial propagating houses are the better, and 

 building them partly below the ground-level not only renders 

 them naturally less liable to suffer by external changes of 

 temperature, but also by the same token saves fuel. Neat 

 little span-roofed houses, partly say two feet below the 

 ground-level, are generally the most satisfactory. As to the 

 dimensions, they can be made to vary according to circum- 

 stances of site and other peculiarities of situation ; but a house 

 twelve feet wide, and eight to ten feet high at the ridge, is 

 a convenient size, and generally suitable. As we have said, 



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