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AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[Apitiii, 
A Garden on the Housetop. 
GREEN-HOUSES ON THE ROOFS OF CITY DWELLINGS. 
Much interest was excited last Autumn, by an 
article in the Evening Post, of this City, describ¬ 
ing a plan proposed by Samuel B. Parsons of 
Flushing, for covering the roofs of city houses 
with glass, instead of slate or tin, and thus pro¬ 
viding a room in which could be grown a va¬ 
riety of fruits, flowers, and ornamental plants. 
It was suggested that roofs could be construct¬ 
ed nearly as cheaply of thick corrugated glass, 
as of tin, and that a light attic room would be 
provided, which could be heated enough for the 
growth of plants, even in Winter, by the waste 
warm air rising from the rooms below—with, 
perhaps, a little additional heat from a pipe lead¬ 
ing up from a stove or furnace, during the cold¬ 
est days. By covering the attic floor with con¬ 
crete, raised in the middle, and provided with a 
gutter around the sides, a layer of soil could be 
put on, or the plants could be put into pots of 
earth. In this room might be grown a profu¬ 
sion of grapes, dwarfed peach and pear trees, 
nectarines, flowering plants and shrubs, etc., 
furnishing a pleasant resort for the members of 
the family and visitors, and affording healthful 
employment as well as entertainment to those 
taking care of them. The idea is a pleasant one, 
certainly, and the plan, with some modifications, 
appears to be feasible and worthy of attention. 
An improvement has recently been suggested 
by Mr. Parsons, applicable to buildings already 
erected, as well as to those to be constructed. 
This is, to erect a glass structure like a green¬ 
house, on the top of the roof, accessible from 
the attic by stairs leading directly into it. At 
the request of Mr. Parsons and ourselves, Messrs. 
Kellum & Son, the well known architects of 
this city, have prepared the design illustrated 
by the accompanying engravings. These struc¬ 
tures may be of various forms, and adapted 
in size to the strength of flic roof, and of any 
style suitable to the location, architecture of the 
building, and taste of the proprietor or archi¬ 
tect. By the addition of a few extra supports 
under a roof of medium size, it may be made to 
sustain a glass house, say 16x32 feet, which is 
the scale to which our engravings arc drawn. 
Fig. 1 exhibits the location on the roof, and 
the general appearance of the structure. The 
top of two of the walls of the house is seen in 
the foreground. (The walls are here represent¬ 
ed as of stone; the artist should have repre¬ 
sented them of brick, of which house walls are 
usually constructed.) The lower part of the 
glass house is made of wood, and adapted to the 
slope of the roof. The remainder of the sides, 
including the roof, is covered with sash. 
Fig. 2 is the floor plan, having raised shelves 
around the sides and in the middle, for elevating 
the plants to the light, and to a convenient po¬ 
sition for handling. If the roof be strong 
enough, zinc or cement boxes may be arranged 
for holding beds of earth, though experience 
has shown that grape vines, dwarfed fruit trees, 
and flowering and ornamental plants, will flour¬ 
ish well in pots of suitable size. The earth in a 
pot one foot in diameter, will support a large 
vine, or a tree of sufficient size to produce a 
considerable amount of fruit. By training them 
upright, the branches and foliage may be kept 
within the diameter of the pot, so that a very 
large number could be grown in a house of the 
size represented in our engravings. By fitting 
the sash with double glass, it would be so warm 
as to protect plants in Winter, and keep them 
in vigorous growth by the admission of a very 
little warm air by means of a pipe from below, 
or even by opening the stair door leading up 
from a warm hall. 
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Fig. 2. 
Wo need not stop to describe the utility or 
beauty of such structures. Should they come 
into general use in our cities, a birds-eyo view 
from an elevated point would present, instead 
of a motley array of black and parti-colored 
roofs, a succession of pleasing glass houses of 
various form and architecture, decked with the 
rich verdure and colors of the foliage, flowers, 
and fruits within. It is perhaps not too much 
to expect that the fruit produced would repay at 
least a good interest on the cost; while the 
pleasure derived from the care of the plants, 
and from having so pleasant a resort, would be 
oMncstimable value. The female members of a 
family would become familiar with the cultiva¬ 
tion of nature’s most beautiful productions. 
But this may be painting a new idea in too 
strong colors. The imagination may perhaps 
be running a little ahead of the judgment; 
still, we can not see why the thing is not 
feasible. Will not some of our wealthy house 
owners, in this and other cities, try the experi¬ 
ment? A few hundred dollars, which they 
would perhaps expend upon some useless gew¬ 
gaw, will suffice to build a garden lodge on the 
housetop. We hear that one gentleman is al¬ 
ready moving in that direction. Let others try 
it. Mr. Kellum, or other leading architects here 
and elsewhere, will doubtless furnish all needed 
plans and specifications, and the florists and 
nurserymen will supply tie plants. Competent 
gardeners will, for a small sum, take charge of 
the houses, until the proprietors have become 
sufficiently skilled in, and enamored with the 
occupation, to dispense with outside help. 
As the subject is one of great interest, we 
shall furnish further information and engravings 
on this topic in future numbers. 
--»* - — -- - 
About Your Lawn. 
Do you say that you have none ? Then you 
are to be pitied. And yet you have land enough: 
here is an acre or more in front and around 
your house, which would make a noble scene. 
If you had only a quarter of an acre, as is the 
case with many persons, you might get along. 
Not every body appreciates the value of a 
good lawn. In our view, no feature of a coun¬ 
try residence is so important as this. One may 
have a fine house, showy fences, thrifty trees, 
arbors, and flower-beds, but they do not make 
a place complete, if it lacks a lawn. Flower 
borders require constant care, arbors rot down, 
and fences get out of order, but a lawn, once 
well made, demands only a little labor to man¬ 
age it, and then it lasts almost forever. And it 
is no trifling consideration, that its beauty lasts 
all through the season. In Spring, the grass 
starts up at the first song of the robin; in Sum¬ 
mer, if the ground be fertile, it is nearly as fresh 
as in Spring; the fragrance of its frequent mow¬ 
ings is more delicious than the “ extracts ” of 
Parisian apothecaries; the sight of children at 
play upon it, or of tree-shadows stretching across 
it at morning and evening, is a study which 
painters love; it heeds not tlve winds which de¬ 
spoil trees and flowers of their beauty; and iu 
Autumn, amid falling leaves and prevailing 
gloom, it retains its cheerful verdure until hid¬ 
den by Winter snows. 
One reason why many lawns wear out, is that 
they are not properly taken care of and fed. 
The law rules here, as in all agricultural opera¬ 
tions, that an equivalent must be returned to 
the land for that which is taken from it. Now 
if a piece of lawn is mowed once a fortnight, 
and the grass raked up and carried off, the land 
must, of course, be the loser, and should be rec¬ 
ompensed accordingly. A common plan is to 
spread a thin coat of old, well-rotted manure 
over the grass, in the Fall or Spring, raking off 
the coarser parts. Some persons use wood 
ashes, interchangeably with the manure. It is 
an objection to barn manure, that it often intro¬ 
duces troublesome weeds. Ashes, plaster, pou- 
drette, or ground bones are without such an ob¬ 
jection. 
We notice that Mr. Sargent, of Fishkill Land¬ 
ing, thinks it unnecessary to enrich lawns after 
they are once made, if persons will only use 
Lawn Mowing machines. And he thinks “ the 
time is not far distant when the scythe will pass 
away and be no more seen, at least for orna¬ 
mental purposes.” His reason is this: the lawn 
mower, (which, by the way, he would use once 
a week,) according to his management, does not 
gather up the grass, but spreads it evenly on the 
turf. Mowed so often, the grass never gets more 
than an inch high, and when cut and spread, it 
