THREE-QUARTER SPAN GREENHOUSE. 



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stages there is a central stand for plants, with a border in front, while the back wall 

 is free for covering with plants which may render it ornamental. In such a house 

 the roof may be occupied to any extent desired by Eoses or other climbing plants 

 established in the border; or even with vines or tomatoes, if the owner desire to 

 gratify not only the eye but the palate. 



"With good management and a prudent selection of plants for the position, such 

 structure as is represented in Fig. G5 may be made, as many are, both useful and 

 ornamental. It has to be remembered, however, that if the roof is covered densely 

 with either vines or climbers, only shade-loving plants, such as Ferns, Palms, and 

 others which are mainly grown for the beauty of their leafage, can thrive 

 satisfactorily in summer; but the 

 house may be rendered highly attrac- 

 tive with bulbs of various kinds 

 and other early flowers in the spring. 



Even in summer there are flowers 

 of the choicest kinds that succeed 

 under a shaded but not too densely 

 shaded roof, — namely, orchids, of 

 which some of the finest specimens 

 ever exhibited have been grown in a 

 vinery. It is a question of attentive 

 care, good judgment, and cultural skill, 

 be given when these aristocrats of the floral world are under consideration, and 

 fortunately many of them are so plentiful and cheap as to be within the means of most 

 persons who can provide themselves with that enjoyable adjunct of a home — a well-built 

 structure of the kind represented. 



The back walls of such a house as is shown may be covered in various ways. 

 We have seen them occupied with figs and tomatoes, with camellias, cytisuses, 

 heliotropes, fuchsias, and zonal pelargoniums ; also most elegantly, usefully, and 

 even profitably, with what is known as the u Asparagus Fern," which is not, of 

 course, a fern at all, but the South African Asparagus plumosus nanus, the fern- 

 like leaves and sprays of which are so much in demand for associating with cut flowers. 

 A wall covered with this plant in the best of health, with dark green fleecy leaves, is 

 always cherished by its possessor and admired by his friends. 



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