172 PORTABLE, TEMPORARY, AND MOVEABLE STRUCTURES. 



coming into flower ; e is a bell-shaped wicker case with a handle, for covering 



during the night plants that shoot early 

 in spring. All these forms are con- 

 structed of stakes of hazle, oak, or other 

 wood, strong and pointed so as to be 

 firmly fixed in the ground, and the 

 wattled work is of willow wands or 

 young shoots of hazel, snowberry, or 

 whatever can be most conveniently got 

 from the woods. Those structures used 

 for the more tender plants may be filled 

 with straw or hay, provided the plants 

 are on a lawn where grass-seeds drop- 

 ping from the hay will not prove in- 

 jurious ; or they may be covered with 

 mats or canvas. Besides these forms, 

 which may be made of any size, accord- 

 ing to that of the plants to be pro- 

 tected, small semiglobular, close- wove 

 chip baskets, not above a foot high, are 

 used at Abbotsbury as shades for deli- 

 cate Alpine plants in sunny or windy 

 weather. Where baskets of this kind 



Fig. 110 



Wiciceruork protectors of various cannot be conveniently procured, very 

 good substitutes may be found in bass 

 mats, canvas, or oil-cloth, supported by rods forming skeletons of suitable 

 sizes and shapes. 



462. Portable substitutes for hand-glasses. — Hand-glasses, from their 

 great liability to breakage and the quantity of glass they contain compared 

 with the ground they cover, become very expensive articles. A common 

 square hand-glass, it has been shown by Mr. Forsyth, Gard. Mag. 1841, 

 contains seven square feet of glass to light or shelter two and a quarter square 

 feet of ground, being a little more than three times as much as is really 

 necessary for the plants usually cultivated under them : hence he proposes 

 to substitute boards well painted, pitched or tarred, to increase their dura- 

 bility, in place of upright glazed sides to the hand-glass ; and instead of a 

 conical or pyramidal roof, to employ a square cast-iron sash, twenty-four 

 inches on the side. Fig. Ill shows the sash glazed with small panes, say 



Hand-box, as a substitute for a hand-glass. 



Sash, as a substitute for 

 a hand-glass. 



Side view of hand'box. 



four inches and a half wide, on account of their cheapness, and greater 



