192 GREENHOUSE PLANTS. 



or unsightly appearance to the specimen houses or the 

 conservatory. 



To the amateur who has no greenhouse, a few words will 

 not be here out of place. Pits are made by building up an 

 enclosing wall of brick-work, and placing glass sashes (or 

 lights as they are called) over the space so enclosed. A 

 very useful kind of pit for plant culture may also be made 

 with turf walls — i.e., walls built up of square sods of turf, and 

 covered with glass sashes, but the appearance of these is not 

 so good, neither are they so substantial as when built with 

 brick. The height will be regulated by circumstances, and 

 by the kind of plants intended to be grown, but a pit with 

 the wall two feet high at the back and one in front, and 

 about four and a-half feet from front to back, will afford 

 space for a quantity of beautiful plants. The length may 

 be quite a matter of taste or convenience ; it may be that 

 of one light only, or two, three, four, or more, at the 

 pleasure of the proprietor. Each Hght should be three feet 

 or three feet sis inches in width. 



Frames are structures of a character similar to pits, but 

 the back, front, and sides are of wood. They can easily be 

 removed from one place to another. 



These pits or frames may have a pipe for hot water 

 running round them, and in that case any greenhouse 

 plant may be grown in them that is sufficiently dwarf and 

 compact in habit ; or they can be used without the heating 

 appliances, and then are what are known as cold pits ; such 

 as these can be used in winter for plants of a tolerably hardy 

 constitution, and we have seen very handsome examples of 

 Hiicii, Epacrh, Acacia, Axalea, Eriostemon, and many such- 

 like things, grown by plant lovers- possessing no other 

 accommodation than a pit of this character. When these or 

 similar plants are grown in such a structure, they must be 



