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98 MARKET GABDENING. 



are open beneath. Upon the bank of natural soil is 

 placed well-rotted manure and garden soil preparatory 

 to culture. Elevated beds (the exponents of this system 

 claim), are more desirable than those sunken to the 

 le.yel of the floor, in the economy of heating, as well as 

 in working, elevated ones being credited with producing 

 more uniform crops than the others, at less expense. 

 The use of brick instead *of wood for the center table is 

 an improvement in the method of construction which 

 will strike every practical gardener favorably. In a 

 house that is kept damp and warm several months of 

 the year, wood will rot out every five years, and it is the 

 experience of every gardener that the wooden tables have 

 to be removed every five years, a very considerable item 

 of expense in a large house. As a matter of fact, the 

 first outlay, for brick and building the walls, is much 

 more than wooden benches would cost, but the brick 

 lasts as long as there is a roof kept over the house. 

 Many instances may be cited where gardeners have been, 

 and are now, making the change of substituting brick 

 for wood on the basis of economy. As already stated, 

 the side beds are not solid, as is the center bed, but are 

 open for the location of hot and cold water pipes, it 

 being very desirable, if not necessary, that these pipes 

 be accessible at all points. The supports for these side 

 tables, which are three and one-half feet wide, may be 

 brick columns or wooden posts, with slate or boards for 

 the sides and bottom. The same depth and quality of 

 soil should be placed on the benches as on the center 

 table. The roof of the forcing house is supported by 

 three lines of iron rods, or pipes, one and one-half inches 

 in diameter, and set about ten or twelve feet apart. One 

 of these lines of support runs from the ridge-pole to the 

 center of the middle bed, and the other two from the 

 hip-joint to the edge of the side beds, thus holding 

 the roof of the house. In the construction of vegetable- 



