280 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, February 1, 1859. 
write about, I decided at once on giving a perspective They have stood all weathers; and if I cannot describe 
view, and a section, with two more heads of detail, of one the whole process, so as to make it as clear as Arcturus 
of the latest, which was put up here, at Surbiton, from was, one night, in the tail of the comet, no one will be to 
Mr. Macrostie’s owu hand. There they are before you. blame but myself. 
1-ig. 2.—SECTION OF FOKTABLE GREENHOUSE, WITHOUT RAFTERS, ON THE TRUSS PRINCIPLE. 
a a are loose brick footings, laid on the surface of the giound. 
b b are oak, or pitch pine, sill plates, in one length, 
c and d are light sills and eayes’ plates, in one length, haring the uprights 
haired at c. 
r. is ridge in two thicknesses, of 0 inches by 1J inch each, with a flat iron 
truss 1J inch by 4 inch, bolted between (as at x) to make it self- 
supporting. 
f f are ventilating flap lights, 
o o are fixed lights. 
h n are iron trusses, to support the roof, instead of rafters, 
i and x the detail of ends of lights, showing the application of truss rods, 
i. is the top of lights. 
M bottom end of lights. For a roof with lights 20feet long, the trusses 
would do, if made with j-incli round rod iron of s. c. quality. 
In the first place, the house represented in perspective 
(fig. 1) is larger than the scale to suit our purpose would 
tell; therefore, no scale is given. Such a house may he 
made 100 feet in length, cither as a span or lean-to, and 
of any desirable width; hut a span-roofed house is the 
best for plants, and the easiest to make portable. The 
sides and ends may be made in different lengths, or 
pieces, as already proposed by Mr. Robson and Mr. Risk. 
The house itself stands on one row of bricks on edge, 
“footing” fashion—that is, across the length of the 
bottom sill; and the bricks are on the hard surface of the 
ground, nothing more being necessary, solely owing to 
the mechanical contrivance of the roof. 
In the first place, the ridge is a three-inch deal, sawed 
in two flitches, or boards : the two boards stand one inch 
apart, or hardly so much, being so kept by small iron 
bolts (fig. 3, i x). The ridge piece is, therefore, nine 
inches deep,—the depth of a deal,—about four inches 
wide, and thirty-four feet long. It supports itself in a 
horizontal position, as straight as a gun-barrel, without 
your seeing how. The great secret is nearly hid between 
the two side boards : it is a flat iron truss, one inch and 
three cpiarters in width, and half an inch in thickness. 
Such a small bar of iron, doing such work, is the best 
i evidence I have ever seen, or heard, of the principle of 
trussing being capable of such applications as render the 
