224 



CASSELL'S POPULAR GARDENING. 



that cover the distance between the two rows of 

 pillars at back and front, and thus sufficient solidity 

 and streng-th is obtained to uphold the soil and 

 plants in the upper portion. 



In pits used for the storage of plants in pots, or 

 for the culture of Strawberries or Kidney Beans, 

 stages are often introduced to keep the plants near to 

 the glass and at an ec^al distance from it through 

 all their stages, as shown in Fig. 16. Any heat re- 

 quired is thus also enabled to circulate freely around 

 the plants, while the risk of over-heating from fer- 

 menting material is reduced to a minimum. Stages 

 are also often introduced into what are termed cold 

 pits, for the safe wintering of Carnations, Picotees, 

 Auriculas, or other choice florists' flowers. 



Different Sorts and Sizes of Pits. — Pits, as 

 already hinted, are mostly divided into cold, tem- 

 perate, hot, or dung-pits, according to their tempe- 

 rature or uses. They are also characterised by the 

 method of culture pursued, and the character and 

 names of the plants grown in them. Hence, such 

 names as store, forcing, propagating, Pine, Melon, 

 Cucumber, and other pits, so distracting to amateurs, 

 are rather indicative of the different uses to which 

 the same pit may be put than of any structural pecu- 

 liarities of the pits themselves. The same pits, 

 with a few modifications as to less or more of heat, 

 ■would probably answer equally well for any or all of 

 these purposes. The tendency of the present day is 

 to trust less to structure and more to skill for success 

 in all departments of horticulture. The store-pit, 

 however, as we have already seen, is at once the 

 simplest and the most generally useful. Any kind 

 of structure that will exclude frost, will suffice to 

 store many plants in through the winter or spring, 

 that would probably perish without such protection. 

 It is mostly, however, built on the surface, with 

 four or nine-inch brickwork, and covered with glass 

 lights, that may or may not need covering in very 

 severe weather, according to the nature of the plants 

 stored in it. 



Such pits are seldom or never empty, summer or 

 ■winter. In fact, in not a few gardens they are 

 more crowded in summer than in winter. Gene- 

 Tally placed in a protected position, with a northern 

 aspect, they afford shelter as well as shade to many 

 plants in summer that cannot endure the mid-day 

 sun's broad glare. Having flat rather than steep 

 roofs, the latter has little power over store-pits. 

 This is of equal importance in winter as in summer. 

 Most of our glass roofs are so formed as to gather up 

 and utilise to the utmost every feeble ray of sunlight 

 in •winter. Not so the store-pit. The more light 

 and the less heat such pits admit the better. The 

 olants are stored away in them not to grow, but 



to rest in statu quo. The one thing to be guarded 

 against is growth. In order to *void that, a cool 

 temperature, a northern or north-eastern aspect, 

 and a low pitch of roof are provided. The com- 

 bined influence of these non-exciting conditions 

 is that the plants remain as they were, and the 

 triumph of successful storing is to bring the plants 

 out of store as they went in several weeks or months 

 previously. 



As the angle of the roof of pits is of much impor- 

 tance to their character or uses, it may prove useful 

 to give some further particulars concerning it here. 

 It is practically determined by the size of the pit 

 and the disparity of height between its front and 

 back walls. To prevent drip, one of the most con- 

 stant and trying of all nuisances in pit-culture, the 

 roofs of pits are often pitched at steeper angles than 

 they otherwise would be. Fluted sash-bars are also 

 used in the case of Pine-pits, to receive and carry 

 the condensed moisture right out at the front or 

 lowest part of the pit or house. Taking six feet 

 wide as one of the more useful sizes for store-pits, 

 and an angle of twelve or fifteen degrees as sufficient 

 to freely shed the rain off them, to insure these 

 angles the back wall must exceed the front in height 

 by fifteen inches and eighteen .inches. For every 

 foot added to the width of the house, an additional 

 three inches must be added to the back wall over the 

 front to ke3p the roof at the same flat angle. As 

 the angle increases, and the roof becomes more steep, 

 the disparity of height between the front and back 

 ■walls rapidly mounts up, so that at an angle of 

 twenty-six and a half degrees the difference in 

 height of the back wall over the front in a pit six 

 feet wide would be three feet. The -latter would 

 prove injurious for a mere store-pit, but would be 

 barely sufficient for a forcing-pit. 



Forcing-pits. — These, as their name implies, 

 are, in their more vital properties and uses, com- 

 plete counterparts of store-pits. In the latter, the 

 plants find safety and security in standing still ; in 

 the former, the faster they may be made to move 

 the better. For many plants the safest, as well as 

 most potent moving force, is light. This has not 

 ■seldom been lost sight of, and without doubt many 

 bulbs and other plants, such as Valley Lilies, and 

 some shrubs, such as Lilacs, may be forced into 

 bloom by heat only or chiefly. But in all such 

 cases the mere bloom, and not the strength and 

 future welfare of the plant, is what is chiefly desired. 

 Where, however, both must be insured, as in the 

 forcing of fruits, Eoses, Azaleas, Rhododendrons, 

 and other valuable plants, then light becomes of 

 equal or more importance than heat ; and it is a 

 well-kno^wn fact, abundantly proved by tho ■widest 



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