CHAPTER IV, 
CULTIVATION OF BEDDING PLANTS, 
One of tlie principal reasons why, in many instances, bedding 
plants are slow in making their proper effect, is that they are 
preserved during winter in greenhouses constructed for better 
purposes. A house suited for camellias, azaleas, and heaths, 
will not suit bedding plants well, unless they are placed on 
shelves very near to the glass. Abundance of light all the 
winter long is one of the most important conditions, for if 
the plants are far removed from the glass, they become 
attenuated, make long weak shoots, and suffer considerably 
when planted out, no matter how favourable at the time the 
weather may be. Moreover, when housed with proper green¬ 
house plants, they are generally kept too moist and too warm, 
and the result is that they grow when they ought to rest, and 
are in a tender state when the time arrives for planting them. 
The best place for the hardier kinds of bedding plants, such 
as geraniums, petunias, and verbenas, is a well-built brick 
pit or greenhouse, with very low roof, in which the plants can 
always be kept very near the glass, and the management of 
which, as to temperature, moisture, and air, will be considered 
with reference to the bedding plants, and not with reference 
to other things that may be mixed with them. To describe 
plant houses in detail is no part of the purpose of this book; 
but it is necessary to the completeness of a practical con¬ 
sideration of bedding plants, to offer examples of houses 
adapted for their preservation. The first shall be the simplest, 
and the cheapest possible—a good useful pit, costing five or 
six pounds at the utmost. The w T alls are four-inch brick¬ 
work ; and in order to make them more secure against frost, 
as well as improve their appearance, a bank of earth, one foot 
wide at the base, and sloping upwards to the sill, might be 
thrown against them, and neatly turfed over. The furnace 
