idea, I still claim the merit, — and a great deal of 

 merit I believe it to be, of giving it the extended 

 publicity it has had. 



I I think it was in 1862 that I first called attention 

 to the subject, detailing the success of some small 

 houses that I had so built for trial. Since that time, 

 several large establishments have been remodeled 

 after this plan, and scores of new ones have adop- 

 ted ic. At least half a dozen of these already rival, 

 in extent, the primitive structures of Mr. Buist, at 

 which he has been cobbling for the last 40 years, 

 nearly. 



Whether the system of ridge and furrow is a 

 "stale" one, as Mr. Buist elegantly puts it, is a 

 matter to question. I contend that it is not, and 

 that its very general adop ion in this country and in 

 Europe has been only during the last 4 or 5 years. 



The idea, no doubt, was mainly promulgated 

 from Sir J seph Paxton's erection of the Crystal 

 Palace in 1856 (?). I visited the leading florists' 

 establishmsnts, in London, in 1857, and it was cer- 

 tainly not then in use. But in 1863 Low & Co., of 

 Clapton, erec ed 12; and when a friend of mine 

 saw them there two years after they spoke of their 

 plan as new, and were unbounded in its praise. 



Whether this system was in use in 1821 at Ed- 

 monston, in Scotland, I cannot dispute with Mr. 

 Buist, as I was not much around about that time; 

 but this .ViUch I do know, that my 'prentice days, 

 from 1839 to 1843 were spent but a few miles from 

 this same Edmonston, and at that time all the 

 glass on the place might have been carried on a 

 wheelbarrow, and no doubt it had been gradually 

 growing from Mr. Buist' s time. "Our pla ." was 

 not copied from there. 



Mr. Buist charges me with a very mean action — a 

 very serious offence. He says in effect that he has 

 been "credibly informed" that I adopted the ridge 

 and furrow system from seeing that of Mr. Bisset 

 of Philadelphia, and then claimed it as my own, 

 robbing Mr. Bisset of his prior right of the plan. 



If Mr. Buist hal not seen my establishment and 

 that of his friend Mr. Bisset, I would have been 

 charitable enough to suppose that he had been 

 ignorant of the facts of the case and had been de- 

 ceived by his "credible information. But he 

 knows just as well as I do that Mr. Bisset' s houses 

 are not built on the ridge and furrow system at all, 

 but that each stands clear and singly by itself, with a 2 

 or 3 feet space between, at least such was the case 

 when I saw them after he had them finished in 

 1863 (I think,) which was one or two years after I 

 had built my experimental houses on this plan at 

 Jersey City. On conversation with Mr. Bisset, at 



that time, I told him that I thought he had made 

 a great mistake in not connecting them, but he 

 could not see it, and very likely does not yet. 



In alluding further to what I call Grreenhouses, 

 and what he deprecatingly calls " pits," Mr. Buist 

 makes statements equally erroneous. He says they 

 are 9 feet wide, and sunk from 1 to 3 feet in the 

 ground. They are exactly 11 feet wide, and are, in 

 all cases, unless under special circumstances, level 

 with the ground. 



He boasts that a table of one of his Philadelphia 

 houses holds more plants than one of my green- 

 houses. The Great Eastern is a pretty big ship, but 

 she has not proved very profitable to her owners. — 

 And if Mr. Buist chooses to concentrate the space 

 of his whole greenhouse on one table, he is not likely 

 to be annoyed by imitators. 



He also discovers, in his fault-finding vein, that I 

 have made a serious mistake in having my hot-water 

 connections in my shed instead of inside the green- 

 house. Did it not occur to the gentleman that 

 this "blunder" might be an intentional one, and 

 that these sheds, while packing, were as necessary 

 to be kept from freezing as a greenhouse ? and when 

 not wanted for that purpose, that the hay wrappings 

 preserved the heat for the greenhouses? 



Mr. Buist says that these houses "are everywhere 

 in use." I think I could challenge him to name a 

 single instance where they were so used until allu- 

 sion was made by me to the matter in the Monthly, 

 in 1862. Prior to that, Messrs. Parsons & Co., 

 of Flushing, L. I., had two houses so joined ; but I 

 doubt much if there were any at that time about 

 Philadelphia, as I doubt if there are many to-day. 

 I rather think Mr. Buist has not yet appreciated 

 this " modern improvement " sufiiciently to adopt 

 it. One would think that a lesson received at so 

 early a da e as 1821 would not have been thrown 

 away ; and that when describing the different sys- 

 tems of erecting greenhouses in his writingSjhe would 

 not have omitted this. 



Heliotrope.— Strike cuttings in Angust; the 

 following spring select the strongest plants and pot 

 into five-inch pots, and as they grow pinch back the 

 shoots most determinedly to lay the foundation for 

 well-shaped plants. In June pot into nine-inch 

 pots ; place out of doors, and frequently water 

 overhead. By beginning of September they will 

 be good specimens to take in for flowering all the 

 autumn and spring. Old plants, if cut back and 

 watered with liquid manure, will produce several 

 crops of flowers during the season. — Gar. Weekly. 



