HOItTICULTURAL BUILDINGS. 
22.5 
eighteen feet ; three feet of this for a path at 
the back, two feet six for a shelf or stage in 
front, two feet six for a path next to the front 
table or stage, and nine feet to be occupied by 
the tan-pit. The house may have two feet 
six of wall above the ground, and two feet six 
occupied with the plate, front windows, and 
the resting-place for the roof ; this will make 
the height five feet in front, and fifteen feet 
behind. The pit in the middle may be three 
feet in front, and four feet six inches high 
behind, a parapet stone, or slate coping, being 
placed on the top of the pit wall all round, and 
the sides to slope properly from back to front. 
All the front upright windows should open 
with sliding motion ; there should be a door 
at each end ; portions of the end windows 
should open, and the upper half of the roof 
lights should slide down. Inside the pit, the 
floor should be two feet lower than the 
paths, and a false bottom should be laid six 
inches higher than the real one, leaving a 
hollow the whole size of the pit, all but the 
actual supports of the false-^bottom. Gratings 
in both the back and in the portion of floor 
under the front stage should communicate with 
this hollow underneath the pit, and the prin.- 
cipal heating apparatus should be under the 
front stage. The effect would be, that the 
heated air would ascend, and as it reached the 
back, it being cooler than it was given off, it 
would descend through the gratings in the 
back path, and come out among the heated 
pipes or flues, or hot-water gutters, or what- 
ever other mode of heating might be adopted, 
and be again heated and given off to go its 
round, forming, with every door and window 
closed, a complete circulation of air. The 
centre pit should be filled with tan, in which 
such plants as recpfire it can be plunged, and 
on which such as do not may be placed on 
any flat surface. Such is the construction of 
an old-fashioned pit, except the hollow bottom 
to circulate the air, upon the plan of the late 
Mr. Penn, now carried on by Mr. Hill, of 
Lewisham ; but there are now many ways of 
obtaining heat, and many ways of constructing 
the apparatus ; nevertheless, the stove must 
have a capacity of ranging from 55 1q 100, 
though rarely wanted so high, and the more 
steady the temperature can be kept the better. 
We have seen Mr.Wilmot's, upon Mr. Penn's 
plan, up at 1 20 without feeling at all oppressive 
with the doors closed; the heat being the only 
sensation, for the breathing was as free as if 
we had been out of doors. In such a stove as 
we have described, tropical fruits could be 
grown and ripened in perfection 5 yet it would 
do for the most delicate plants. 
The Greenhouse. — This useful appendage 
to almost every good garden is generally 
formed, in its exterior appearances, very like 
the stove or hot-house, but with a more lofty 
roof j because, as the temperature is never 
wanted more than forty degrees, and would, 
in fact, be none the worse for five degrees 
less, so it never went down lower, there is not 
the necessity for keeping the roof low. It 
hardly matters what size it is, nor how many 
feet of air it contains ; whereas, in the stove, 
where the heat should be continually many 
degrees higher, it is contrived that the roof 
shall be more flat. Many green-houses are 
fifteen or twenty feet high behind, and five or 
six in front, the roof pitching at an angle of 
forty-five. The interior has no pit, but 
shelves, ranging one above another, from the 
wall to within three or four feet of the front, 
unless there is a front table or stage, in which 
case it must, of course, not come so forward ; 
as there must be a path in front of the sloping 
stage, between that and the front table. The 
stage is put near to, or at a distance from, the 
glass roof, according to the size of the plants for 
which it is intended. If for private use, there 
must be room for plants four or five feet high ; 
if for nursery business, a much shorter space 
will answer better, for all plants are the better 
for growing near the glass. The shelves are 
made to rise one above another, like the flat 
steps of a step-ladder ; and they must be wide 
enough to hold good- sized pots for private 
use ; or they may be narrow enough for mere 
nursery pots if they are for the purposes of 
trade. The difference is, that in the green- 
houses of private persons the plants are kept 
to grow, and in nurseries they are got rid of 
before they attain any size. The green- house 
is intended to keep away frost, and wind, and 
wet, but no more. It is not proper to keep 
fires in them, except sufficient for that purpose, 
though in frosty weather it is very difficult to 
preserve a low temperature without running a 
risk of its getting too low. Green-house 
plants, properly so called, are such as will not 
stand frost or frosty winds. For example, 
most of the Cape or Botany Bay plants, 
Heaths, Epacris, &c. ; but the Azalea Indica, 
the Camellia Japonica, and some others, are 
called green-house plants, though they will 
live in the pit without any heat, and stand 
some degrees of frost. Thus, it is better to 
hang a mat in front of a green-house for a 
slight frost, than it is to light a fire ; but if 
fire must be lighted, it should be for as short a 
time as it is possible to keep frost out by, and 
as small a fire as can be made to answer the 
purpose. Green-houses are always better for 
having top lights, not puttied in the lap ; for 
a tolerably dry atmosphere is so necessary to 
green-house plants, that fires are sometimes 
obliged to be lighted to dry the house when 
there is no frost. In these cases the top 
sashes of the roof must be let down, and if 
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