508 



CULTURE OF THE CUCUMBER IN POTS. 



Ayres prefers securing the perpendicular rays in March and September, 

 and therefore places his glass at an angle of 51°. At this angle he loses 

 much of the sun's power in the summer, but that is of no consequence in a 

 cucumber house. 



Fig. 358, to a scale of \ of an inch to a foot, is a copy of the section given 

 by Mr. Ayres ; in which a, " is the tan-bed in which the pots containing 

 the plants are plunged ; b, is the trellis to which the plants are trained ; 

 c, is the pathway under which is a flue, with the pipe of an Arnott's stove 

 passing through it, and d, is the ground line. Arnott's stove must stand in 

 a vault accessible from without about a foot below the level of the bottom 

 of the flue, to secure a good draught to the fire. The flue should be 

 divided into four equal compartments, the first and third of which, by 

 keeping the pipes wholly, or partially immersed in water, might be made to 

 produce moist heat, while the others will produce dry heat ; so that by 

 tilting or removing the covering tiles of any of the compartments, the 

 humidity of the atmosphere will be placed quite under the command of the 

 attendant. The cost of the stove 

 and piping to heat a house of the 

 above dimensions, and 20 feet 

 long, would not be more than 4/. 

 10*., and in the most severe wea- 

 ther, with the assistance of the 

 bark bed, it would maintain a 

 temperature of 65° or 70° for about 

 sixpence per day; and in ordi- 

 nary weather, it would not cost 

 more than from eighteenpence to 

 two shillings per week. A stove 

 of this kind, with Welsh coal, 

 would not require attending more 

 than four times in twenty-four 

 hours. Hot water would be pre- 

 ferable to a stove, but it would be 

 more expensive, both in the erec- 

 tion and subsequent management." 

 (P. 4). A hot- water apparatus, 

 as Mr. Ayres observes, would be 

 more expensive in the first in- 

 stance, but once well put up it is 

 not liable to get out of order for a series of years. Explosive gases are often 

 formed in Arnott's stove ; and altogether its management is precarious. 



Such a house as fig. 358 might be heated by hot water by Corbett's 

 open gutters at very little expense, for the gutters might be of wood, or 

 of the cast-iron eaves guttering used for projecting roofs. The pit might 

 be filled with tan or leaves for plunging the pots in in winter and spring, 

 and in summer with soil in which the plants might be grown without pots. 

 The glass in Mr. Ayres' house is fixed, the sash bars being inserted into the 

 wall plates at top and bottom ; and air being admitted through holes a foot 

 square along the top of the back wall, protected by coarse canvas. The expense 

 of erecting a house of this kind would be little more than that of erecting 

 a brick pit of the same length. The glass, which ought to be of the new 



Fig. 358. Mr. Ayres' Cucumber-house. 

 Scale ^ of an inch to afoot. 



