CUCUMBER AND MELON HOUSES. 



459 



provided with stoppers for the regulation 

 of the heat. Similar tubes should com- 

 municate between the drainage and the 

 surface, for the purpose of applying water 

 to the roots of the plants. 



This pit, although all that is required 

 where bottom heat only is needed, is 

 deficient as regards the providing suffi- 

 cient atmospheric heat — as all pits are 

 where dependence is placed on the tanks 

 alone. Sufficiency of heat may indeed 

 be obtained from these, if they are allowed 

 freely to communicate with the air in the 

 pit ; but this heat is so charged with 

 humidity, that plants would soon be de- 

 stroyed by an excess of it. 



To render this pit, therefore, efficient 

 during winter, and to counteract the 

 effects of damp even in summer, a flow 

 and return pipe of 2 inches in diameter d, 

 should be placed along the front, and its 

 ends connected with the boiler, but not 

 with the tank ; so that it can be wrought 

 when the circulation in the tank is shut 

 off by a stopcock, or by plugging up the 

 pipes near to the boiler. 



j 



§ 3. — CUCUMBER AND MELON HOUSES. 



The melon and the cucumber have for 

 ages been cultivated upon the primitive 

 principle of dung-beds, and within the 

 narrow compass of a three-light frame. 

 Some have extended their accommodation 

 to a pit of somewhat greater length, but 

 in few cases increased in breadth. If 

 economy can be attributed to this mode 

 of production, it must certainly be limited 

 to the original expense in the construc- 

 tion, and not to the annual waste of ma- 

 nure, labour, and the anxiety that always 

 attends precarious and uncertain results. 

 The fruit also has been grown in a 

 medium the least likely to improve 

 flavour, or secure a crop of long duration. 

 Indeed, during the winter the production 

 of cucumbers has been looked upon as 

 one of the greatest feats in gardening, 

 and he who could produce a brace of this 

 fruit on Christmas-day was looked upon 

 as no ordinary being, or as one deeply 

 skilled in garden craft. 



That both of these fruits can be pro- 

 duced in greater abundance, with greater 

 certainty, and of better quality, in well- 

 ventilated houses, and where the fruit 



can be grown suspended from the roof, 

 and on all sides exposed to the sun and 

 air, has been of late years abundantly 

 proved. The first attempt at producing 

 cucumbers in houses dedicated to their 

 sole production, we believe, occurred at 

 Knowlesly, near Liverpool, so early as 

 the beginning of the present century. 

 Few followed the example till of late 

 years, notwithstanding the results shown 

 by the late T. A. Knight and others. 

 Times, however, are so far changed that 

 cucumber-houses are not unfrequently 

 met with ; and we see no reason why the 

 lovers of melons should not have their 

 melon-houses as well as their vineries 

 and peach-houses. 



Fig. 650 may be offered as a very use- 

 ful structure for this purpose. The gut- 



Fig. 650. 



ter a is heated by a flow and return pipe, 

 and the water in the gutter supplied by 

 a small leaden pipe from the cistern 

 placed at one end of the house, in 

 the corner of the bed next the door. 

 The water is withdrawn when a drier 

 atmosphere is required, by a similar 

 pipe leading into an underground tank 

 without the house. Bottom heat is 

 supplied by the gutter and lower pipes 

 passing up through the pavement h, into 

 the bed c, in which the plants are grown. 

 Tubes are let through the pavement along 

 the front d, to admit heated air, or rather 

 to produce a circulation of air in conjunc- 

 tion with the openings e in the parapet- 

 wall behind. Fresh supplies of air are 

 admitted into the vault, in which the 

 gutter a is placed, by the air-drains //, at 

 back and front. The orifices of all these 

 tubes and openings are to be furnished 

 with proper revolving brass ventilators, 

 for the complete exclusion of air at any 

 one or all of them, as may be deemed 

 necessary. With such a command of 

 lower ventilation, a constant agitation 



