62 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[February, 
Greenhouses attached to Dwellings. 
BY PETER HENDERSON. 
Eveiy now and then the inquiry is made: • 
“How can I best attach a greenhouse to my 
dwelling?” Nothing is more simple, as far as 
the mere shell of the greenhouse is concerned, 
but the difficulty is to heat it. Many may not 
know that a greenhouse, even without any ar¬ 
tificial means of heating, can be made very use¬ 
ful in the early spring months in this latitude, 
and all through the winter in those Southern 
SECTION OF A CHEAP GREENHOUSE 
States where the thermometer does not fall 
lower than 20° or 25*. 
In the diagram of an end section of a simple 
house here given, the sashes (B and C) are 3 
feet wide by 6 long; the top one is so placed 
that it can be let down by weights and pulleys 
over the lower one, and thus secure ventilation. 
The front wall and ends are best built by using 
4 x G inch chestnut or cedar posts. < Upon the 
outside of the posts rough planking is nailed; 
against that a layer of tarred paper; and 
against the tarred paper the weather boarding 
is nailed, either overlapping or tongued and 
grooved, as maybe desired. The outer walls of 
all greenhouses built of wood are now thus 
made with us, and it is found to be far prefer¬ 
able to the old and objectionable mode of fill¬ 
ing in between the boards with sawdust or 
shavings. The tarred paper is a good non-con¬ 
ductor, and we find walls so constructed^are 
equally as good a protection against -frost as a 
nine-inch brick wall, which would cost twice 
as much. A greenhouse of this kind, 25 feet 
long by 11 wide, should not cost more than 
$100 complete, if plainly built; that is, without 
heating. Heating is a difficult matter in green¬ 
houses so attached to dwellings, unless in cases 
where there is a surplus heat at night from fur¬ 
naces or stoves in the rooms adjoining. In such 
cases, the windows or doors, if low enough, 
could be opened, and enough heat be supplied 
from the rooms of the dwelling; or, better y<5t, 
if it were so arranged that a register from the 
furnace opened into the floor of the green¬ 
house. But when this supply of artificial heat 
can not be obtained, the greenhouse as it is will 
be sufficient to protect plants against any frost 
that Is likely to occur in this latitude after April 
1st, particularly if light wooden shutters are 
put over the lower tier of sashes. I have re¬ 
commended this style of greenhouse to many 
dealers and retail florists in the different States.- 
Those who are simply dealers in plants experi¬ 
ence great difficulty and loss in keeping what 
they purchase for sale in stores or dwelling 
rooms; for if not sold at once, they quickly get 
injured. But this cheap and simple style of 
greenhouse not only by its appearance adver¬ 
tises their business as dealers in flowers, but it 
enables them to buy from the wholesale florists 
at an earlier season. Besides this, they can pur¬ 
chase in March and April at less than half what 
the same plants would cost in May, and it gives 
them time to repot into larger pots. Placing 
them in the greenhouse where they have suffi¬ 
cient space to grow, the plants that are bought for 
$12 per 100 in March, with 
but little trouble in potting, 
airing, and watering, will 
freely retail for 50 cents 
each in Slay. These green¬ 
houses are also economical 
and useful to the amateur 
who purchases for his flow¬ 
er-garden in spring. Bed¬ 
ding-plants, as they are 
called, can not be safely 
planted out in the Northern 
States until the middle of 
May, and if the amateur 
buys from the florist then, 
he generally pays quite 
double the price that he 
could purchase the same 
plants for in March or 
April, for the florist always 
wants room in his green¬ 
houses,and can better afford 
to sell a dozen Geraniums in 
March for $1.50 than for $3 in May. Besides, 
the plants if purchased in March, and shifted 
into larger pots, and allowed plenty of room to 
grow, would be far better than could be pur¬ 
chased at any price from the overcrowded 
tables of the florists in May. The care of such 
plants in the greenhouse is very simple. The 
board benches or tables E and G should be 
covered with tw T o inches of sand, upon which 
to stand the pots; place them so far apart that 
the leaves will not touch; water thoroughly 
whenever the surface of the soil in the pot ap¬ 
pears dry, which will be every day in hot weath¬ 
er. Ventilate by letting down the sashes, more 
or less, as the day is warm or cold, whenever 
the thermometer Indicates 75° or 80°; in other 
words, keep the temperature in the day time as 
near as may be to 60° or 65°, as marked by a 
thermometer placed in the greenhouse where 
the sun will not strike it. Burn half a pound 
of damp tobacco stems on the floor of the green¬ 
house twice a 'week, to destroy the aphis. One 
dealer in Maine informed me that from a green¬ 
house so constructed, 30 feet long by 11 feet 
wide, placed against the south side of a high 
board fence, he sold last spring, in six weeks, 
sufficient bedding-plants that he had purchased, 
and vegetable plants that he had raised from 
seed, to afford him a profit of $200, or nearly 
double the cost of his greenhouse. 
The “Late Roses.” 
BY GEO. IV. CAMPBELL, DELAWARE, OHIO. 
Your correspondent from “The Pines” men¬ 
tions a fact of which I was not before aware, 
namely, that there are three varieties of potatoes 
claiming to be new, and each called “Late 
Rose.” This is certainly unfortunate; and un¬ 
less the names can be yet changed, I see no 
better way of distinguishing them than by pre¬ 
fixing the originator’s name to each sort. 
As I am informed, tw r o of these varieties are 
claimed to be “sports,” or accidental variations 
from the Early Rose. I have had no experience 
with sporting potatoes, but it seems to me ques¬ 
tionable whether they would be reliable or per¬ 
manent in their character; and if they might 
not be disposed to sport back again to their 
original type, or into other, and perhaps unde¬ 
sirable, variations. 
The third variety mentioned was produced 
from a seed-ball of the Early Rose, and was 
selected from forty seedlings raised at the 
same time, and from the same source. This 
batch of seedlings was in many respects inter¬ 
esting; especially remarkable, however, for 
their extreme variableness. Nearly every vari¬ 
ety of form and shade of color known in pota¬ 
toes was produced; and the difference in pro¬ 
duction was equally varied. More than half 
these seedlings produced, the first year, quite 
small potatoes—from two to a dozen tubers in 
a hill, in size from a filbert to that of a pullet’s 
egg. Others yielded more and larger potatoes, 
the product varying, with one exception, from 
one pound to two and a half pounds to a plant. 
The exception mentioned is the variety which 
has been named “Late Rose,” but which I pro¬ 
pose hereafter to call “ Campbell's Late Rose.” 
This potato yielded the first year, from a single 
seed, twenty potatoes of marketable size, the 
largest tuber weighing twelve ounces, and rang¬ 
ing from this size down to that of a hen’s egg, 
the entire product six and a half pounds. 
This remarkable productiveness continues un¬ 
abated ; and tested with the Early Rose, its 
yield has been invariably at least four times 
greater from the same area. The past season a 
parallel row of the same length, and under pre¬ 
cisely the same conditions, was planted beside 
Bresee’s Peerless. The result was four bushels 
of Late Rose, to one bushel and three pecks of 
Peerless. Several parties, to whom I sent speci¬ 
mens for trial last spring, report from one to 
three bushels from single potatoes cut into ejms, 
and planted with common field culture. 
Next to great productiveness, its late keeping 
in spring is, perhaps, its most desirable quality. 
In the same cellar, and under the same temper¬ 
ature and conditions, where Early Rose had 
sprouts two feet long, and was, consequently, 
shriveled and unfit for eating, the eyes of this 
seedling remained dormant, and the tuber sound 
and crisp as when first dug. It is emphatically 
a late potato, the tops remaining fresh and grow¬ 
ing into October. In quality it is, as described 
by your correspondent from the Pines, “ excel¬ 
lent,” and has received almost universal com¬ 
mendation. I believe it to be fully equal to that 
of the Early Rose, or any other popular variety 
now grown. In form it is much like the parent 
Rose, in color a little deeper, or more rosy. 
Parsons’s White Mignonette. 
BY IV. C. STRONG, BRIGHTON, MASS. 
In the December Agriculturist , Parsons’s 
White Mignonette is classed by Mr. Henderson 
with the numerous frauds in novelties which are 
annually sent from Europe. Certainly we have 
reason to be indignant that so many wonders 
with high-sounding titles should serve to illus¬ 
trate “a distinction without a difference.” Some¬ 
times they prove even worse. But the very 
fact that we are so often deceived is a good 
reason why we should recognize and appreciate 
a real prize. I am quite sure Mr. Henderson is 
mistaken in his estimate of the value of this 
White Mignonette. Possibly its name may be 
an unfortunate one, as it leads the public to in- 
