428 



BUDS. BLOSSOMS. FRUITS. 



A Mechanic's Greenhouse. — Being a mechanic with 

 a very moderate income, but desiring more flowers than 

 my slender means would allow me to buy, I determined 

 to build a small greenhouse, believing that I could grow 

 not only my own flowers but enough more to help pay 

 for the expense of building such a house. The house is 

 a three-quarter span, 24 feet long and 11 feet wide, ex- 

 tending east and west. It has a shed on the west end. 

 The south wall is 4 feet high ; the north wall 6 feet. 

 The roof' is made of sashes, the long span 7 feet, the 

 short span 4'2 feet. I used 10-inch glass, and there are 

 three rows of glass in the sashes, as I found that wider 

 sash, 7 feet long, would be too heavy to handle. I am 



A Mechanic's Greenhouse. 



a renter, and the greenhouse must necessarily be a mov- 

 able one. The -house is heated with a common brick 

 furnace built under the west end of the south bench, 

 with the door opening in the shed. Five or six feet of 

 the flue, next the furnace, is made of brick; the re- 

 mainder is made of 6-inch sewer-pipe. The upward 

 turn of the flue, at the eastern end of the greenhouse, is 

 made with a T pipe (see A in illustration). By means 

 of a swab thrust in at B, I can soon clean the flue. The 

 south bench is built 2 inches back from the wall to allow 

 the warm air to strike the glass at the lowest point and 

 thus keep the frost off all the way down. I built most 

 of the house myself, and do not think it cost more than 

 I25 or I30. A bushel of coal will heat this house for 24 

 hours. 



I can grow many kinds of plants, and every year I sell 

 more than enough to pay for all the expense of running 

 the house. On very warm days, while I am away at 

 work, my wife ventilates the building. I try to do all 

 the watering before I go to work, or after I come home. 

 The work required to keep the house in order is but a 

 pleasant way of spending some of my leisure moments, 

 and the little greenhouse gives much pleasure to my 

 family and friends. — A Mechanic. 



Seed-raising in Europe. — Erfurt is the center of the 

 seed-growing business in Germany — almost, we might 

 say, of the world. A writer in the London Garden says 

 that most of the land near the city belongs to seedmen, 

 and that Erfurt is truly a city of flowers. One of the 

 largest industries is raising seed of the annual ten weeks 



stock, " One firm grows something like 300,000 pots of 

 them annually. They are kept on stages much like an 

 ordinary greenhouse stage, and have a wooden or tiled 

 roof to keep off the heavy rain and too direct rays of the 

 sun, the sides and backs being left open. Most essential 

 for good cultivation is the soil, which must be free from 

 any vegetable matter. The plants, raised in pits on a 

 slight hotbed, are generally planted seven to nine in a 

 pot. Asters are grown by the acre, one firm alone devot- 

 ing 100 acres to them. They are raised in pits and after- 

 wards planted out, the distance apart depending on the 

 variety, but it is seldom less than one foot each way. 

 When they come into bloom all rogues and button-eyed 

 ones must be removed. Petunias are grown in large quan- 

 tities, somewhat after the manner of stocks. They re- 

 quire a great deal of attention, as each bloom must be fer- 

 tilized by hand to insure its seeding. The pollen from the 

 double blooms is very difficult to obtain, the flowers being 

 so dense are removed from the plant, placed in wet sand and 

 pulled open to allow the sun and air to ripen the pollen^ 

 which is carefully removed and placed on the finest single 

 blooms. Cinerarias, begonias, gloxinias are also grown 

 in large quantities; the two latter have to be carefully hy- 

 bridized to insure a crop of seeds. Seed of mignonette, 

 dianthus, etc., is saved by the ton. Pansies also come in 

 for a large share of attention, and several hundredweight 

 of their seed are often harvested by one firm. They re- 

 quire a great deal of attention during the seeding-season, 

 and must be gathered at the right time ; if not, the pods 

 burst and the seed is scattered. Hardy perennials are 

 grown in Erfurt in great variety, although not in such 

 large quantities as annuals. Several collections I know 

 of contained from 1,000 to 2,000 varieties, all kept for seed. 

 Labor is cheap. The average wages of a good working- 

 man are about $3 per week in these gardens, and he has 

 to work from five in the morning till seven in the evening. 

 Much of the lighter field work is done by women and 

 girls, who earn from 20 to 25 cents a day. 



Requisites of a Perfect Apple. — The special points 

 at present in demand in apples, and those which give any 

 variety value, are as follows : Richness and flavor ; 

 productiveness; long-keeping qualities ; attractive color; 

 fruit firmly adherent to tree ; regularity in size and shape; 

 even maturity; small core and few seeds; smooth, thin 

 skin, yet sufficiently tough to permit easy bruising ; to- 

 gether with health, vigor, hardiness and longevity of tree. 

 The ideal apple for our time would probably conform to 

 the following scale : Edible qualities, 20 ; productiveness 

 20; keeping qualities, 15; adherent fruit, 10; color, 10; 

 even maturity, 10 ; regularity in size and shape, 5 ; small 

 core and few seeds, 5 ; good skin, 5. The first two of the 

 above-named requirements are the most important. It 

 is difficult to say which stands first, for with productive- 

 ness goes health and hardiness of tree, while quality in- 

 cludes all that makes a fruit valuable as an article of diet. 

 If an apple is not edible, or in other words, is zero quality, 

 productiveness counts for nothing. On the other hand, 

 if an apple has the finest quality, yet only one or two 

 specimens are produced, the quality counts for practically 



