A CHAPTER ON GREEN-HOUSES. 37 



from us ; they have only to say " let us have green houses," and they 

 have them. 



But we have also other readers, many thousands of them, who 

 have quite as much natural taste, and not an hundredth part as much 

 of the " needful " with which to gratify it. Yes, many, who look 

 upon a green-house as a sort of crystal palace, which it requires a 

 great deal of skill to construct, and untold wealth to pay for and 

 keep in order. The little conversation that we hold to-day must be 

 considered as addressed to this latter class ; and we don't propose to 

 show even them, how to build a green-house for nothing, but how 

 it may be built cheaply, and so simply that it is not necessary to 

 send for the architect of Trinity Church to give them a plan for its 

 construction. 



The idea that comes straightway into one's head, when a green- 

 house is mentioned, is something with a half roof stuck against a 

 wall, and glazed all over, what gardeners call a lean-to or shed- 

 roofed green-house. This is a very good form where economy alone 

 is to be thought of ; but not in the least will it please the eye of 

 taste. We dislike it, because there is something incomplete about 

 it ; it is, in fact, only half a green-house. 



We must have, then, the idea, in a complete form, by having 

 the whole roof what in garden architecture is called a " span-roof" 

 which, indeed, is nothing more than the common form of the roof 

 of a house, sloping both ways from the ridge pole to the eaves. 



A green-house may be of any size, from ten to as many hundred 

 feet ; but let us now, for the sake of having something definite be- 

 fore us, choose to plan one 15 by 20 feet. We will suppose it at 

 tached to a cottage in the country, extending out 20 feet, either on 

 the south, or the east, or the west side ; for, though the south is 

 the best aspect, it will do in this bright and sunny climate very well 

 in either of the others, provided it is fully exposed to the sun, and 

 not concealed by trees at the sunny time of day. 



Taking fig. 2 as the ground-plan, you will see that by cutting 

 down the window in the parlor, so as to make a glazed door of it, 

 you have the opening precisely where you want it for convenience, 

 and exactly where there will be a fine vista down the walk as you 

 sit in the parlor. Now, by having this house a little wider than 



