509 



THE HOT-HOUSE. 



Repairing the Lights and cleaning the House. 



If the roof-lights had in the course of the summer been taken 

 oft' any of the hot-house departments, they should be replaced 

 early in the month, and all the glass-work of the entire house or 

 houses put in the best possible repair. Examine the wood-work 

 and see that all is tight and in good condition. If new painting of 

 the timbers, sashes or any other part is necessary, and it has 

 not been done in the preceding months, it should be no longer 

 neglected. 



Indeed it would be of considerable advantage at this time, pre- 

 vious to the taking in of the plants, to give a complete and thorough 

 cleaning, painting, and white washing to the entire house; and if 

 infested with insects, to fumigate it effectually; and also to wash 

 the entire of the inside with a very strong solution of corrosive 

 sublimate, and if thought necessary, to clean away every morsel 

 of old bark out of the pits, carry it off' to a considerable distance 

 and replace it with fresh tan. Any plants remaining in this de- 

 partment may be removed into the green-house while this work is 

 going on, and these should be effectually washed and cleaned, if 

 infested with insects, before their being replaced. 



This cleansing, fumigating, &c. will destroy most, if not all, of 

 the lurking insects which have taken shelter in the various parts 

 of the house, and which, by and by, if not destroyed, would sally 

 forth and make a formidable and, perhaps, destructive attack upon 

 your plants; every timely precaution ought to be taken to keep the 

 house clean and sweet, and the plants free from vermin. 



Talcing in the Plants. 



The more tender kinds of hot-house exotics which arc arranged 

 out of doors, should, in the middle states, be taken into the green- 

 house about the tenth of this month, and the others successively, 

 according to their respective degrees of tenderness, so that the 

 whole collection may be in by the eighteenth or twentieth thereof, 

 or a few days earlier should the weather happen to be cold. Here 

 they are to remain, closing the windows at night and giving them 

 all the air possible on warm and mild days, till towards the end of 

 the month, or sooner if you have the bark-pit renewed, and the hot- 

 house ready for their reception. 



VS hen you have every thing in readiness dress the plants by 

 picking oil* all decayed leaves, and especially those which arc an- 

 noyed with insects, cut away all awkward and ill-placed branches, 

 and give each pot a fresh top dressing of suitable compost, then 

 plunge the whole to their rims in the bark-pit, placing the smallest 



