100 GARDENING FOR PLEASURE. 



freezing point in the coldest weather. This it did com- 

 pletely when the glass was covered at night with shut- 

 ters ; and the plants with which it was filled, of a kind 

 requiring a low temperature, kept in better health than 

 if they had been grown in a greenhouse having fire heat. 



Now, although I have never seen such a combination 

 since, I am satisfied that in favorable circumstances such 

 a structure might be made of great utility and at a 

 trifling cost, for as it dispenses with heating apparatus, 

 which usually is more than half of the whole cost in all 

 greenhouses, the use of a cellar and greenhouse could be 

 had at probably less than the cost of an ordinary green- 

 house ; and for half hardy plants plants that will do 

 well in winter if kept only above the freezing point such 

 a greenhouse will be better for many of them than any 

 kind of greenhouse heated by fire heat. All kinds of 

 Eoses, Camellias, Azaleas, Zonal Geraniums, Violets, 

 Cape Jessamines, Carnations, Abutilons, Verbenas, Prim- 

 ulas, Stevias, and, in short, all plants known as cool 

 greenhouse plants, will keep in a healthy, though nearly 

 dormant condition, during the winter months, but they 

 will flourish with greatly increased vigor at their natural 

 season of growth, and flowering as spring advances. Be- 

 sides, the cellar may be used for the ordinary purposes of 

 such a place ; or if exclusively for horticultural purposes, 

 no better place can be had for keeping all deciduous 

 hardy or half hardy plants, Hyacinths in pots to start to 

 flower, or any bulbs of similar nature. The great point 

 to be observed is that the soil where such a structure is 

 to be erected is entirely free from water, or if not so nat- 

 urally, must be made entirely dry by draining. 



The style that I think would suit best for general pur- 

 poses would be twelve feet in width, and of any length 

 desired. The excavation should not be less than seven 

 feet deep, walled up to about one foot above the surface. 

 When complete it would show something like the section 



