4 
SEED-TIME A#3D HARVEST. 
for food much as we use the potato; but 
they are nauseous to the European and 
American. 
Procure a few dahlia seed, plant early 
with your tomato and cabbage seed; when 
two or three inches high plant out in the 
garden about two feet apart, stake up well, 
and enjoy a little of the beautiful with 
much of the useful. 
Heating Greenhouses. 
William D. Philbrick, in an add ress be¬ 
fore the Massachusetts Horticultural Soci¬ 
ety, said the heating apparatus best suited 
to the wants of the amateur, is the ordinary 
hot water circulation from a boiler about 
four feet below the level of the house floor, 
in a well drained cellar, at one end of the 
glass, and covered by a shed or office, which, 
being always warm, will be found a conven¬ 
ient workshop in cold weather. The boiler 
should always be a size larger than the 
pipe-fitters advise, to make sure of being 
sufficient. Much will depend upon the 
draught of the chimney; the same boiler will 
do twice as much work with a good draught 
as with a low and small chimney. 
To maintain tropical heat in the compart¬ 
ment eleven and a half feet wide and nine 
feet high will require six or eight four-inch 
pipes, while the portion devoted to hardy 
plants will not need more than half as many. 
In heating, much will depend on location 
and the shelter afforded by hills and trees 
on the north and west. The compartments 
on the north will require about four pipes, 
and in the portion devoted to the cntting- 
bench two will pass under the bench and be 
so inclosed as to give bottom heat to the 
cuttings. 
An abundant supply of water is almost as 
Important as heat. If the public waterworks 
do not afford this, it may be raised from a 
well or cistern by a wind-mill, to a tank 
fifteen or twenty feet high in the loft of the 
boiler-house, It is desirable to have it 
sligtl> waimed for tropical plants, which 
may be easily done by having the tank con¬ 
nected with the boiler by circulating pipes 
provided with valves. 
If found convenient, the boiler and shed 
may be placed in the middle of the struct¬ 
ure, carrying the heating pipes both ways 
therefrom. Thie is a more symmetrical 
arrangement, but this point will be govern¬ 
ed in great measure by convenience as re¬ 
gards accessibility by coal wagons, drain¬ 
age of the cellar, and nearness to the supply 
of water. 
The internal arrangement will be best left 
to the taste of the owner, but any plant will 
thrive better in a bed where the roots can 
spread than if confined in a pot, but the 
confined condition of the roots favors early 
flowering; moreover, plants that are to be 
removed out-doors in summer are best pot¬ 
ted. The pot, therefore, is a necessity, and 
is best kept from drying up by plunging to 
the rim in clean sand. 
Such a house as has been described will 
cost from fifteen to twenty-five dollars per 
foot of length, according to the style and 
thoroughness of the work. 
Some amateurs will desire only a small 
greenery of one compartment, attached to 
the dwelling house, and heated by a coil of 
pipe from the furnace in the cellar, or, 
where steam is used, by a steam pipe, and 
much enjoyment may be derived from such 
a structure. It must be partitioned from 
the house so tightly that it can be smoked 
without smoking the dwelling. A very 
convenient greenery may be cheaply made 
by fitting sashes between the posts of a 
piazza, to be removed in summer with all 
the shelves and pots. A heating coil of one- 
inch pipe, or a vy ater-back in the fire-pot 
of a common furnace, connected with a 
system of circulation around the piazza 
floor, will suffice for heating, or if steam is 
used for heating the house, it may be very 
conveniently extended to the greenery. 
For small greenhouses, detached from the 
dwelling house, the hot water circulation 
will be found cheaper and more satisfactory 
than steam, and far better than the old-fash¬ 
ioned flue, red-hot at one end and cold at 
the other, which is also a cumbrous affair 
and now little used. Steam has advantages 
where several houses are to be heated from 
one fire, since it is easier to divide and regu¬ 
late the heat; but for so simple a structure 
as has been described nothing is so efficient 
and economical as a good hot-water boiler. 
The combination of flue and and boiler is of 
