November, 1917 
The combination conservatory and greenhouse attached to the dwelling and heated from it 
is always attractive. The ground plan of this one is shown on the following page 
DOES THE SMALL GREENHOUSE PAY? 
Yes , if You Like Flowers and Fresh Vegetables , and Enjoy Working 
Among Them the Year Around—The Vital Questions of Cost and Yield 
ITH the growth of the gardenjmovement 
in America there has come, so natur¬ 
ally that its presence has hardly been realized, 
an equally great interest in keeping the gar¬ 
den growing the year around. We are no 
longer content to let General Erost, that van¬ 
dal of the North, sweep down on us without 
warning and occupy our peaceful garden spots 
and flower beds, not only destroying the most 
cherished things, but dictating to us what we 
may and may not grow to maturity and when 
we shall grow it. 
Does a small greenhouse pay? If you like 
flowers and fresh vegetables, it does. There 
is no form of gardening as absorbing as gar¬ 
dening under glass. If you have ever tried it, 
you know that there and there only can you 
get on terms of perfect intimacy with your 
growing plants. You see not 
only the results of Nature’s ef¬ 
forts in working out her prob¬ 
lems, as you do in the outdoor 
garden, but each progressive 
step is under your close scrutiny 
—the swelling seeds, the sprout¬ 
ing seedlings, the unfolding 
seed-leaves, the expanding first 
true leaves, the mysterious form¬ 
ing of the buds, and the final 
achievement of cheery souled 
flowers, when all the world is 
mantled in snow and hardly a 
green thing is to be seen. 
Watching and helping in the 
development of these things be¬ 
comes part of your everyday 
work. Even the mysteries of 
root growth and development, 
F. F. ROCKWELL 
as uniform and systematic as that of the plant 
above ground, will become to a large extent 
familiar to you. All this intimate knowledge 
will be of use not only in your gardening in¬ 
doors, but in your vegetable garden and flower 
beds as well. 
In fact, your little glass house, no matter 
how small it may be, is a veritable school for 
gardening in which you become more quickly 
and more accurately familiar with the methods 
and the effects of pruning, pinching, disbud¬ 
ding and transplanting, and the use of insecti¬ 
cides—in fact, all the little technicalities of 
gardening—than you do in your work out-of- 
doors. It is a school wherein thoughtful at¬ 
tendance has its quick reward in pleasure as 
well as profit, in learning and in achievement. 
As to the pleasure that is stored up in a 
winter garden, I do not think that I ever met 
anyone who has done work in a real little 
greenhouse of his or her own—which is quite 
different from pottering around and getting 
things all mussed up in a living room or in 
some other place that was not suited for gar¬ 
dening—who did not confess to finding it in¬ 
teresting and even more fascinating work than 
in the garden outdoors. There is, in the first 
place, something quite enchanting in the real¬ 
ization that you have your own little world, 
quite independent of the season and the 
weather, in which you are master and creator. 
I know of nothing else in grown-up pastimes 
which comes so near to the unadulterated fun 
of the play-house period of childhood as hav¬ 
ing one’s own greenhouse. If there is any¬ 
thing more delightful than sitting in the sun 
and making mud pies, it is pot¬ 
ting up a batch of nicely rooted 
cuttings or transplanting a lot of 
sturdy young seedlings, in the 
generous warmth of a sunny little 
greenhouse on a cold winter’s day, 
when a snow-covered landscape 
reminds you, whenever you look 
up, of what you would be missing 
if you did not have it. 
Nor are the returns you can get 
even from a small greenhouse, in 
the way of things for your table, 
to be sneezed at. While, in some 
cases, a small greenhouse might 
not pay merely as a dollars and 
cents proposition, nevertheless the 
vegetables and cut flowers which 
can be obtained from early fall 
until nearly midsummer, and the 
A modern ready-built greenhouse with double glazing. Several 
types of these rcady-to-put-up houses are on the market 
