336 



SCIENCE OF GARDENING. 



Part II. 



opposite each number should be a space for noting down daily the number taken out of 

 each sieve for use. From this table statements may be made from time to time of the 

 quantity of fruit on hand for the use of the house-steward. {Maker, in Hort. Trans. 

 vol. ii. 76.) Forsyth directs that all the floors or shelves on which apples are to be kept or 

 sweated, should be made of white deal, as when red deal is made use of for these purposes, 

 it is liable to give a disagreeable resinous taste to the fruit, and spoil its flavor ; when white 

 deal cannot be procured, he advises covering the shelves with canvass. Those sorts of 

 fruit which keep longest are generally best preserved in jars, excluded from the air, and 

 placed in cold dry situations, not under 32° nor above 40^. 



1704. The root-cellar should be placed beneath the office and seed-shop ; and the 

 fi-uit'cellar below the fruit-room, and both descended to from the lobby. Tlie great ob- 

 ject is to keep the air in these apartments cool, and always, as near as possible, of the 

 same degree of coolness : and for this purpose the windows should be small, placed be- 

 low the ground level, and furnished with double or treble casements or sashes. These 

 cellars should also be approached through double doors for the same reason. The fruit- 

 cellar may be fitted up with binns or cells, like a wine cellar, in which casks and jars or 

 sieves of fruit may be placed ; and the root-cellar may have a few divisions on the 

 ground to keep diflPerent roots apart, and sand, to keep them of uniform plumpness or 

 moisture. 



1705. The seed rooms or garrets may consist 



of one for drying and cleaning seeds ; one for 283 ^ 



drying bulhous roots, as onions, hyacinths, &c. ; 

 and one for drying fruits or preserving them 

 there. In all of these rooms, there should be 

 hooks from the roof for hanging bundles of pot- 

 herbs, branches of seeds, sieves, bags, &c. and a 

 moveable table or counter in the centre of each, 

 with lattice-shelves below for holding sieves of 

 roots, seeds, or fruits. A very small fanning- 

 macliine, and a couple of grooved cylinders to 

 act as a threshing-machine, or a Meikle's hand 

 threshing-machine {fig- 283.) to be worked 

 by two men, are requisite appendages of the 

 seed-room. Supposing these rooms to form one 

 wing to the gardener's house, the office opening into his kitchen ; then the other wing 

 may consist of a tool-house and men's living-room on the ground-floor ; cellars for po- 

 tatoes and fuel for their use under, and sleeping-apartments over, with a door, lobby, 

 and stair, corresponding vAth the other wing. 



1706. The tool-house is commonly a small apartment in the back sheds of hot-houses, in 

 which the tools are laid down or piled up in the angles promiscuously ; but in a proper 

 tool-room, wherever situated, there should be contrivances of different sorts for hanging 

 up the tools, so as their important parts, such as the teeth of rakes, blades of hoes, and 

 spades, &c. may always be so exposed, that the master may see whether or no they are 

 properly cleaned. There are certain tools, of which each workman appropriates one to 

 himself, as spades, scythes, &c. ; in these cases a small space should be allotted to each 

 hired man, with his name affixed, &c. Watering-pots, syringes, engines, &c. should 

 have their moveable parts separated, and be reversed, in order that they may drain and 

 continue dry. Lists, nails, and mat-ties, should be kept in close drawers. Pruning- 

 instruments oiled, and laid horizontally on latticed shelves or pins. A grindstone and 

 other stones, and hones, with a vice, and files for sharpening the tines and teeth of forks 

 and rakes, are the appropriate furniture of the tool-house. 



1707. The lodge for under-gardeners should never consist of less than three apartments 

 or divisions ; first, an outer lobby, with a pump and exit for water, in which the work- 

 men may wash their hands on entering to their meals, and the party who acts as cook or 

 servant, which is generally taken by turns, may wash, scour, &c. ; secondly, the cook- 

 ing and living room, in which should be an economical kitchen-range, with an oven and 

 boiler included, and proper closets, cupboards, tables, &c. to expedite and simplify 

 cooking ; and, thirdly, the bedroom over, where the bedsteads should be of iron, nar- 

 row, and without curtains, and for not more than one person. To each bed, there should 

 be a small clothes-press, in which should be kept the linen, &c. belonging to each bed, 

 and for which the occupier ought to be rendered responsible. A cellar for fuel and 

 edible roots should be formed below. It is a common practice to place the lodges for 

 working gardeners behind the hot-houses, or some high wall, in what is called a back 

 shed. There, in one ill-ventilated apartment, -with an earthen or brick floor, the whole 

 routine of cooking, cleaning, eating, and sleeping is performed, and joung men are 

 rendered familiar with filth and vermin, and lay the foundation of future diseases, by 

 breathing unwholoseme air, and checking the animal functions by cold and damp. How 



