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THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
be made to any width and height required. There is a ventilating flap 
12 inches wide on each side fitted with cords and pulleys, by which means 
20 feet in length may be opened or closed at once; while at the ridge or 
upper angle of the roof is fixed a continuous ventilator, giving a clear opening 
of 12 inches the whole length, and closed by means of a moveable capping, 
which is held in position by moveable iron stays, and is capable, by pulling 
a sasli-line, of being elevated to a height of 6 inches above the roof, whereby, 
as it still remains over the opening, the entrance of rain is prevented. This 
opens in 20-feet lengths, and, on the cord being relaxed, falls back into its 
position, and effectually shuts out the external atmosphere. The plan has 
all the advantages of the lantern mode of ventilation, combined with the 
economy arising from its greater facility of construction. 
In fig. 2 is shown a form of house better, adapted for the growth of 
flowering plants or pyramidal fruit trees. This can also be of any required 
width or height, but the length of both must be some multiple of 10, as 
they are framed in 10-feet lengths or bays, by which arrangement greater 
economy in construction is secured. The ventilation in this house is 
provided for by opening the side sashes simultaneously in 50-feet lengths, 
by a very simple application of machinery, and by the adoption of the same 
form of ridge ventilator as already described. 
One point in the construction of these houses is calculated to recommend 
them to favourable notice—namely, that the parts are made up in definite 
lengths, by which not only facility of construction, but facility of removal, is 
secured. Owing to this circumstance their cost does not greatly exceed 
that of an ordinary garden wall. 
T. 
ON THE CULTURE OF THE POTATO. 
Though the season for planting the Potato is for the present passed, yet 
a few remarks on this all-important subject may be useful. I need not say 
what a necessary article of food the Potato is to all classes in this country, 
but more especially to the working people, to whom a deficient crop is a most 
serious matter. The retail price in Knaresborough and other markets in this 
part was in the spring of last year Qd. the weigh of 21 lbs. for the best samples 
of eating Potatos; while in the present spring the prices run from Is. 8 d. 
to Is. 1C )d. the weigh of 21 lbs. This is a great difference in price within 
twelve months ; yet the growers are not better, if, indeed, they are as well 
paid for the crop, than when it was sold at the lower price, as fully two-thirds 
of the crop were destroyed last year by the murrain, whilst in the previous 
season very little injury was done. 
I, like many others, have during the last twenty years given much time, 
labour, attention, and thought to ,the matter; but, like most other people, 
I have never been able to discover any permanent remedy for the rot—a 
subject I do not now intend to discuss. In some fine dry seasons, like the 
summers of 1864 and 1865, I have had little or no disease, but in cold wet 
seasons like the last, the crops have always been more or less diseased. So 
lightly had the crops of 1864 and 1865 suffered from the murrain, that many 
people began to hope the disease was dying out, but the sad destruction of 
last year has dissipated these hopes. 
I read with great interest the results of the different experiments on 
Potato culture that are from time to time reported in the papers; but my 
