THE FLOWER GROWER'S GUIDE. 



Luckily, the types of houses that are most suitable for the production of fruit or 

 " fruit- vegetables," are equally well adapted to the growth of pot-plants. The market- 

 growers' brick-sided houses may not at first sight appear suitable for the growth of 

 flowers ; but owing to the comparatively small amount of wood employed in their con- 

 struction, these houses are remarkably light and prove congenial to plant life generally. 

 Low, span-roofed houses, 12 feet to 14 feet wide, with a height of 8 feet to 9 feet in the 

 centre — measuring from the door sill — with or without sunken paths, and arranged in 

 blocks (see Tig. 1G4), with brick sides and either wood or brick divisions, or no divisions 

 at all, are largely utilised for cucumber and early tomato culture, training both kinds up 

 the roofs, and in these many kinds of plants may be profitably grown. For cucumbers, 



Fig. 104. Market-grower's Houses. 



six rows of hot-water pipes are needed, two more than required for tomatoes, and it is 

 in the cucumber houses that gardenias, eucharises, spiraeas, tuberoses, bulbs generally, 

 lily of the valley, roses, Azaleas indica and mollis, and other shrubs, including lilacs, 

 may be most readily forced. In the 14-feet wide houses, in which gentle heat only is 

 maintained, cyclamens, arums, double zonal pelargoniums, bouvardias, double primulas, 

 liliums, freesias, palms and ferns may be grown. In others of a similar description, with 

 fire-heat turned on when necessary to expel damp or exclude frost, chrysanthemums, 

 carnations, mignonette and Easter flowering bulbs may be arranged. 



Still larger heated, span-roofed houses, with glazed, ventilated sides, and which suit 

 tomatoes, peaches and grapes so well, can be profitably filled with chrysanthemums to 



