Chapter 3

If the soil is wet, or of a heavy nature, it would be better that the bed be made entirely upon the surface. If the situation is a dry one, and the soil gravelly or sandy, then a pit may be excavated, of the size of the intended frame, and three feet in depth. A hollow brick wall should be built up from the bottom, six inches above the surface, if it is intended that the bed should be permanent; otherwise the excavation may be lined with boards, or if designed for only a season's use, it may be left without any support. Hot-beds made under ground require less material, are more lasting in their heat, and require less attention than those built on the surface. On the contrary, should the heat fail from any cause, beds built up on the surface possess the advantage of being more easily renewed by the application of fresh fermenting materials, or "linings" as they are usually termed.

About the 20th of February is early enough, in this latitude, to gather and prepare materials for the hot-bed. Fresh stable manure alone may be used, though preference is generally given to a mixture, in equal proportions, of manure and forest leaves. Place on the ground, (under a shed if possible,) a layer of leaves one foot thick, and on this a foot of manure, then leaves and manure alternately until the required quantity is obtained. Let this heap remain four or five days, or until it begins to heat, then turn over and thoroughly mix the leaves and manure together, and throw them up into a compact, conical heap. In four or five days more your materials will be ready for your bed. Mark off your intended site, running as nearly east and west as practicable. Your frame should be about six feet wide and of any required length. The manure bed should extend a foot outside the frame on the sides and ends. See Figure 1, in which _a_ is the manure heap.

Build up the manure square and level, shaking, mixing, and beating it with the back of the fork, to the height of about four feet, making the centre somewhat higher than the sides, to allow for settling. The frame should be of 1-1/4 inch pine, twenty inches high at the back, and seventeen inches in front, and may be put together with hooks and staples, so as to be removed and stored, when not in use. The sashes should be six by three and a half feet, and the frame should have cross-bars at every sash for support. It is well to have the frame divided by partitions into two or three compartments, that one section may receive more or less ventilation as the plants grown in them may require. In three or four days the heat will be up in the bed, and then it should be covered with six inches of fine garden mould, which should be raked off level. When the soil is heated through, the seeds may be sown. Ventilation should be given to let off the steam and vitiated air, but with caution to avoid the loss of heat. Straw mats will be required to cover the sashes at night, and should be regularly put on. If the weather is very cold, shutters or boards in addition are necessary. If care is exercised in the management, the heat will be maintained as long as is desirable.

Figure 2 represents the hot-bed partly beneath the surface.

The frame in this case will be fifteen inches in height at the back, and twelve inches in front, constructed in the same manner as that before described. The materials and the general preparation of the bed is also the same. A space of about eight inches should be left between the surface of the mould and the glass, to allow for the growth of plants before the sashes can be removed. Coarse litter should be put around the frame, and up even with the top of it, to confine the heat. Beds should be well covered before the sun has left them in the afternoon, and not opened in the morning until the sun is well up. Seeds of vegetables for early planting, and those of annual flowers may be sown, and cuttings of green-house and bedding plants started in pots. Such a bed will also be a favorable place for the propagation of grape eyes, in which an experienced person will often succeed better by this humble means, than with the best designed and most conveniently arranged propagating house.

THE COLD PIT.

Many who have not the advantage of a green-house, wish to preserve over the winter their half-hardy plants which have ornamented their garden during the summer. These are generally consigned to the cellar to dry up and be forgotten. In the darkness they loose their leaves, and when in spring they are again brought to light many are dried up and dead. Properly constructed cold pits offer superior advantages for the protection of many plants of a half-hardy nature, and indeed some that are usually considered tender here find a congenial location. Such a pit should be permanent in its character, and located in a spot easy of access to the house, that it may receive proper attention during the winter. A convenient size, and one sufficient for an ordinary garden would be ten feet long by five wide, varied somewhat from these dimensions to suit size of glass in sashes. The pit should be excavated four feet and a half below the surface, and a hollow wall of brick built up to one foot above the surface. Six inches in depth of coarse gravel should be placed in the bottom on which the pots containing the plants rest. Shelves may be also placed around the sides for the smaller plants. The wall above the ground should be "banked up" to within three inches of the top and sodded.

Double sashes we have found give great protection and save attention in covering the pit. The bars of these sashes are "rabbited" on both sides and double glazed, thus enclosing a stratum of air affording a good non-conductor of heat from within, or cold from without the pit. The plants when first put in the pit will require to be watered and the sashes opened during the day, until cold weather. But little water is required during winter, as the plants are in a state of rest, and partial dryness at the roots is of advantage. In very severe weather straw mats would be required, but the double glass would keep out 10 to 15 degrees of frost. Some ventilation must be given on mild days when the sun is bright to carry off the dampness, but in dull cold weather all should be kept closed up. Camellias and Azaleas do admirably in such quarters, and can be brought into the dwelling and flowered at any time during the winter. Many plants grow with surprising luxuriance after remaining dormant in such quarters all winter. As the season advances in the spring ventilation must be given during the day, closing the sashes at night until the weather becomes mild when they may be gradually removed altogether.

PROPAGATING HOUSES.

Cheap and effective propagating and plant houses, for Nurserymen, have become of late years a necessity from the great increase of the trade in flowering plants for the decoration of our gardens and green-houses, and the very extensive demand for the new and superior varieties of the native grape. PETER HENDERSON, Esq., of Jersey City, long known as an extensive and successful propagator, in an article written for the HORTICULTURIST, thus speaks of his house and management:

"After many years of extensive practice, I have arrived at the conclusion that cuttings of almost every plant cultivated by the florist or nurseryman will readily and uniformly root, if the proper conditions of TEMPERATURE and MOISTURE are given them. It matters little or nothing how the cutting is made, or what may be the color or texture of the sand or soil in which it is planted; these have little or nothing to do with the formation of roots. But an absolute condition of _invariable_ success is uniformity of temperature and moisture. To attain this uniformity, the structure of the house is of vital importance; and it is owing to the erroneous construction of buildings for this purpose that so many have to deplore their want of success. I will briefly describe the construction of the propagating pit we have in use, and the manner of operations, which will best explain my views on the matter. The pit, which faces north, is 65 feet in length by 8 in width, and 3 feet high at back by 1 in front, the pathway being dug out to give head-room in walking. The front bench is 3 feet wide, walk 2 feet, and back bench 3 feet. All along the front bench run two wooden gutters 9 inches wide by 3 inches deep, the water in which is heated by a small conical boiler connected by two pieces of leaden pipe to the gutters. Three inches above the water in the gutters is placed the slate or flagging, (resting on cross slats of wood,) on which is two inches of sand. By regular firing we keep a temperature _in the sand_ from 55 to 75°; and as the pit has no other means of heating, except that given out by the sand in the bench, the atmosphere of the house at night is only from 40° to 50°, or 25 degrees less than the "bottom heat." In the daytime, (in order as much as possible to keep up this disparity between the "top" and "bottom" heat,) a little air is given, and shading the glass resorted to, to enable us to keep the temperature of the house down. And here let me remark, that when propagation is attempted in green-houses used for growing plants, (such houses facing south or southeast,) the place usually used for the cuttings is the front table; and it being injurious to the plants to shade the whole house, that part over the cuttings alone is shaded; the consequence is, that the sun, acting on the glass, runs the temperature of the house up, perhaps, to 80°, or _above_ that of the bottom heat, the cuttings wilt, and the process of rooting is delayed, if not entirely defeated. All gardeners know the difficulty of rooting cuttings as warm weather comes on. When the thermometer marks 80° in the shade fires are laid aside; and if the rooting of cuttings is attempted, the sand or soil in which they are planted will be 10 or 15 degrees _lower_ than the atmosphere, or the opposite of the condition required for success.

The advantage possessed by the gutter or tank, as a means of bottom heat, over smoke flues or pipes, is in its giving a uniform moisture, cuttings scarcely ever requiring water after being first put in, and then only to settle the sand about them. Still, when this convenience is not to be had, very good success may be attained by closing in the flue or pipes, regularity in watering, and a rigid adherence to these degrees of temperature.

The propagating pit above described is used for the propagation of all kinds of plants grown by florists, such as Camellias, Dahlias, Roses, Verbenas, Fuchsias, Grape Vines, etc. The time required in rooting cuttings of soft or young wood is from seven to ten days. Last season, during the month of February, we took three crops of cuttings from it, numbering in the aggregate forty thousand plants, without a loss of more than one per cent. In fact, by this system we are now so confident of success, that only the number of cuttings are put in corresponding with the number of plants wanted, every cutting put in becoming a plant.

In this narrative of our system of propagating, Mr. Editor, I have not attempted to theorize. I give the plain statement of operations as we practice them, thoroughly believing that the want of success in every case must be owing to a deviation from these rules. Ignoring entirely most of the maxims laid down in the books, such as "use a sharp knife," and "cut at a joint," we use scissors mostly in lieu of a knife, and we never look for a joint, unless it happens to come in the way. We are equally skeptical as to the merits of favorite kinds and colors of sands or other compounds used for the purpose. Of this we have reason to be thankful, for a nicety of knowledge in this particular in the head of a scientific (?) propagator may sometimes become an expensive affair.

A friend of mine, a nurseryman from the far west, deeply impressed with our superior horticultural attainments in the Empire City, hired a propagator at a handsome salary, and duly installed him in his green-house department; but, alas! all his hopes were blighted. John failed--signally failed--to strike a single cutting; and on looking about him for the cause, quickly discovered that the fault lay entirely in the sand! but my gullible friend, to leave no stone unturned, freighted at once two tons of silver sand from New York to Illinois! Need I tell the result, or that John was soon returned to where the sand came from?"

During the past year, Mr. Henderson has erected an extensive range of houses, after the following description and plan:

"I have read and examined from time to time, with much interest, your remarks and sketches of Plant Houses, and it is not to dissent from your views that I now write, although it seems to me that your ideas run all one side of the matter, for your designs and descriptions are almost exclusively of an ornamental character, and adapted only for conservatories or graperies, leaving the uninitiated commercial nurseryman or florist to look in vain for something to suit his case. I have said that your ideas seem to be one-sided, in describing only ornamental erections; they seem also so in your uniformly recommending the fixed roof principle. Now, for the purposes of the florist or nurseryman, I think there is but little doubt that the advantage is with the sash over the fixed roof. The difference in cost is trifling; probably a little in favor of the fixed roof; but balanced against that is, that your house, once erected on your favorite plan, you are emphatically "fixed." It is not portable, (unless made in sections, which is only a bad compromise with the sash plan,) and any alteration requiring to be made, your roof is of but little or no value. But the most serious objection to it is the difficulty with air. I have never yet seen a house built on the fixed roof principle that had means of giving air so that plants could be grown in a proper manner, and I could name dozens who have been induced to build on this plan, that one year's experience has given them much reason to regret.

We are now adopting for plant houses, low, narrow, span-roofed buildings, formed by 6 feet sashes, one on each side, the _ends_ of the houses facing north and south. These we attach three together, on the "ridge and furrow" system, as shown in sketch. This system presents great advantages, and, by using no cap on the ridge piece, air is given in the simplest and safest manner, by the sash being raised by an iron bar 9 or 10 inches long, pierced with holes, which answers the double purpose of giving air and securing the sash, when closed, from being blown off by heavy winds. There is no necessity for the sashes being hinged at the bottom, as might be supposed; all that is required being to nail a cleet along the wall plate, fitted tight to the bottom of each sash. Every alternate sash is nailed down; the other is used in giving air in the manner described.

The advantages of such erections are so obvious, that I need not trespass much on your space to enumerate them. The plan can be adapted to detached buildings already up, by erecting houses of the same length alongside; or, in the erection of new houses, if not more than one is wanted, it may be put up with a view to further extensions. I have had four houses on this plan in operation for nearly two years, and I have never before had so much satisfaction with any thing of the kind. Intending next season to remove my green-houses from their present site, all shall be put up after this style."

Messrs. Parsons & Co., of Flushing have also built several houses similar in design for the propagation of grape vines. These latter are heated by brick flues and have proved very satisfactory. The vines are grown in beds and not staked. Pot culture in the usual manner would require greater height of roof. The only objection that we can see to houses built in this manner is the accumulation of snow in the furrows. Mr. Henderson assures us that this is not an objection of any moment in this latitude, and that the expense attending the removal of snow is too slight to be considered.

DESIGN No. 1.

Figures 5 and 6 are a section and ground plan of a propagating house for growing grape vines, but it might serve as well for other plants. The length of the house is on an east and west line, giving a northern exposure to the roof on one side, the opposite facing the south. A board partition runs through the centre dividing the house into two. This partition might be made movable, so that at any time the house could all be thrown into one. The foundations are of stone projecting 6 inches above the ground. Two and a half feet of vertical boarding, above which is two feet of sash, give a height of four and a half feet above the foundation for the side of the house. The side sashes are hinged for ventilation. Top ventilation is afforded at the ridge by ventilators raised by rods from the inside. The roof is on the fixed principle that is composed of sash bars extending from plate to ridge, in which the glass is set. In the north division a combination of the tank and flue systems of heating is adopted, by which economy of fuel to a considerable extent is effected. The boiler is so set that the back of it and all the connecting pipes are inside of the house, only the fire and ash pit doors project through the brick partition into the boiler pit. Much heat is generally wasted from hot water boilers by the direct connection of the chimney with the outer air, that might be saved by means of a well constructed flue. It will be seen that the smoke from the boiler is carried under the tank, in this instance through 8 inch vitrified drain pipe. To prevent the cracking of the pipe near the boiler the first 6 or 8 feet is laid with cast iron pipe. Wooden tanks built on posts and elevated two feet above the floor furnish bottom heat. These tanks are two feet six inches wide and six inches deep, built of 1-1/4 inch pine, well put together with white lead and securely nailed and screwed. A division through the centre separates the flow and return water. Roofing slate of proper size is used to cover the top, the joints of which are carefully cemented to prevent the escape of steam. Sand is placed directly on the slate as a plunging material for the pots containing cuttings. In the south division tanks are also used, but as the plants are potted off when placed there, bottom heat is not so necessary; the sand is dispensed with and the pots rest on a shelf or table built about two inches above the tanks, allowing the heat radiated from the slate to diffuse itself through the house. Slides in each tank afford means of shutting off the water allowing each house to be worked independently. The centre of house is occupied by an earth bed in which the plants (after becoming well rooted in the small pots, to which they are first transferred from the cutting pots) are carefully transplanted and will form large and vigorous vines by the end of the season.

DESIGN No. 2.

In Figure 7 is given a perspective view of a propagating house of an ornamental character. It is intended for forcing early vegetables, strawberries, grapes in pots, and such general propagation of plants as are needed on a country place of moderate extent. The curvilinear roof gives beauty to the design as well as affording more head room inside than the ordinary straight rafter.

The pitch of the roof is quite flat, a straight line between the ends of the rafter forming an angle of only 28 degrees with the horizon. It was desirable to have the roof as low as was consistent with sufficient head room, that the plants might be as near the glass as possible, without the necessity of high staging in the centre. The house has the ends to the east and west. At the west end is an ante-room, not shown in perspective view, containing the boiler, seed drawers, desk, &c. On the north side of house are beds for propagating plants, and the south side is used for early vegetables, strawberries, &c. In the centre is a large bed of earth used for grapes in pots, vegetables and plants. A portion of the roof on the south side can be raised when it is desirable to harden off the plants in spring. The foundation is of wood, locust posts being used, with boards nailed upon both sides and coated with coal tar. The house is forty one feet long and sixteen feet wide, and is heated by a tank constructed as follows: brick piers are built three feet apart on which are laid common blue flag stones six feet long and two feet wide. The sides and divisions of the tanks are built of brick, and cemented inside. One of Hitchings & Co.'s boilers furnishes the heat, and is connected with the tank by two inch iron pipe. Above the tanks are the propagating beds as shown in figure 8. The tank, with the exception of that part across the end of the house is covered with beds and no provision is made for other heat than that radiated from the sides, and that portion left uncovered at the end. In the practical working of the house, this has been found insufficient, and pipes have been introduced for atmospheric heat, the tanks being still retained for bottom heat.

DESIGN No. 3.

The following plan is similar to the one previously given, and was erected for the same general purposes. It has, however, been found to answer so well for a general green-house, that there is but little forcing or propagation carried on. At the east end is the boiler pit, seed room, &c.; the roof of which is of tongued and grooved boards bent to the curve of the roof and battened. The foundation is of stone, and the whole house of a substantial character. Bottom heat is furnished by brick tanks built in the same manner as before described, the water in which is heated by iron pipes running through the tanks (see section _Fig._ 12.) The pipes being also used to heat a grapery near by on a higher level, it was necessary to carry them thus. This arrangement for bottom heat is not as good as when the water flows directly into the tank from the boiler. There is a large bed in centre of house in which pots of plants are plunged, and considerable shelving at ends of house. Bottom ventilation is obtained by six inch earthen drain pipe, placed on a level with the floor inside and running through the wall and up to the surface of the ground outside, where they are covered with wooden caps for regulating the amount of air required. Ventilators are placed over the doors and in the opposite end of house, in addition to which, the sash in the doors are hinged and can be opened when needful.

DESIGN No. 4.