509 
THE HOT-HOUSE. 
Repairing the Lights and cleaning the House. 
If the roof-lights had in the course of the summer been taken 
off any of the hot-house departments, they should be replaced 
early in the month, and all the glass-work, of the entire house or 
houses put in the best possible repair. Examine the wood-work 
and see that all is tight and in good condition. If new painting of 
the timbers, sashes or any other part is necessary, and it has 
not been done in the preceding months, it should be no longer 
neglected. 
Indeed it would be of considerable advantage at this time, pre- 
vious to the taking in of the plants, to give a complete and thorough 
cleaning, painting, and white washing to the entire house; and if 
infested with insects, to fumigate it effectually; and also to wash 
the entire of the inside with a very strong solution of corrosive 
sublimate, and if thought necessary, to clean away every morsel 
of old bark out of the pits, carry it oiF to a considerable distance 
and replace it with fresh tan. Any plants remaining in this de- 
partment may be removed into the green-house while this work is 
going on, and these should be effectually washed and cleaned, if 
infested with insects, before their being replaced. 
This cleansing, fumigating, &c. will destroy most, if not all, of 
the lurking insects which have taken shelter in the various parts 
of the house, and which, by and by, if not destroyed, would sally 
forth and make a formidable and, perhaps, destructive attack upon 
your plants; every timely precaution ought to be taken to keep the 
house clean and sweet, and the plants free from vermin. 
Taking in the Plants. 
The more tender kinds of hot-house exotics which are arranged 
out of doors, should, in the middle states, be taken into the green- 
house about the tenth of this month, and the others successively, 
according to their respective degrees of tenderness, so that the 
whole collection may be in by the eighteenth or twentieth thereof, 
or a few days earlier should the weather happen to be cold. Here 
they are to remain, closing the windows at night and giving them 
all the air possible on warm and mild days, till towards the end of 
the month, or sooner if you have the bark-pit renewed, and the hot- 
house ready for their reception. 
When you have every thing in readiness dress the plants by 
picking off' all decayed leaves, and especially those which are an- 
noyed with insects, cut away all awkward and ill-placed branches, 
and give each pot a fresh top dressing of suitable compost, then 
plunge the whole to their rims in the bark-pit, placing the smallest 
