FRUIT BOOM.] by iron standards or brick piers, back and front, bearing up a flat bar of iron on which the slates may rest ; the use. of the bar will give wider intervals between the supports, which will be found convenient for tilling and emptying the beds. The roof may be tiled or slated ; but, to prevent the injurious influence of hot sun, there should be an inner roof or ceiling d, the space between which and the outer roof c should be packed with sawdust. A hot-water pipe /"should run along both sides of the pathway, close to the front ledge of the lowest beds. The diiFerent shelves can be planted in succession ; and the lower ones, especially those on the floor level, as being most convenient, can be utilized for forcing sea-kale and rhubarb. Another style of house which answers remarkably well may be formed by an arch of brickwork, making a kind of tunnel, or by a semi-arch projected against a brick wall or against the side of a bank (fig. 26). In either case the arch d should be covered with FIG. 26. Semi- Arch Mushroom House. a thick bank of earth c, and planted with spreading shrubs to keep it cool and shaded. The size of the beds and the fitting up may be exactly the same as in fig. 25 already described, except that on one side the available height will be necessarily less. 14. Fruit Room. In many gardens a portion of the shed accommodation behind the ranges of glass-houses is made to do service as a fruit room, but it is sometimes difficult to secure in this way the conditions favourable for the conservation of fruit. The main requisites are coolness and a steady uniform temperature, combined with darkness and moderate but not excessive dryness. A dry cool cellar makes an excellent fruit room. One of the most successful examples of a fruit room is that of Mr Moorman of Clapham, described by Mr Robert Thompson in the Journal of the Horticultural Society (vi. 110), of which figs. 27 and 28 represent a plan and section. The building in this case FIG. 27. Moorman s Fruit Room (plan). was not specially erected for a fruit room, having been originally a loft over a coach-house. The walls have an inner lining of board enclosing a cavity, which is probably one cause of the efficiency of the apartment, since the wood lining and the cavity containing air both act as slow conductors of heat. Th ceiling on the north side 227 is double, which also conduces to the same end. There is a swing window b, opened a little occasionally, but always covered with a roller blind so as to shut out light, and there is a small stove c, but seldom used, and never for the sake of warming the air, unless the temperature is below freezing ; if damp is observed a little fire is lighted on a dry day, and this with ventilation soon dissi- FIG. 28. Moorman s Fruit Fvoom (section). pates it. The fruit shelves d, d are made with battens 1 inch wide and 1 inch apart, with a layer of clean straw placed across them, and on this the fruit is laid out singly. The shelves are enclosed by a partition of open work e, e, which is made of battens similar to the shelves themselves. The fruit room in the Royal Horticultural Garden at Chiswick is a very good example of one on a larger scale. The floor of this is sunk about 18 inches below the ground level, and is concreted to keep out rats and mice. It is built against a north wall, and has a low sloping roof of slate. Three or four ranges of shelves are fixed all round against the walls, and there is a table occupying the centre for the display of samples of the different kinds grown. Such an apartment would form a convenient fruit room in a private garden establishment. The walls should be hollow ; and a ven tilator made to open and shut, and communicating obliquely with the external air, should be inserted in the ceiling near each end, the interval between ceiling and roof being packed with dry saw dust to assist in keeping up a uniform temperature. The shelves should be made of narrow battens of wood laid somewhat apart, as in Mr Moorman s house, and the central table should be fitted with shallow drawers in which to store the very choicest fruits, such as the finer dessert pears, which should be individually wrapped in tissue paper and laid in a single tier. The better kinds of fruits on the open shelves should be laid out singly. It is a wise eccmomy not to stint space in such a structure, as many things can be accommodated for a time in a room of this sort ; for example, the floor space beneath the shelves forms a good place for storing seed potatoes, especially those for the early crops. A window is necessary, as light will be occasionally required to examine and to select the fruits, but it should be tight-fitting, and on all other occasions closed by shutters so as to keep the interior dark. The door should also be closely fitted, to exclude the external air ; indeed it is better if the fruit room itself can be entered from an adjoining apartment, from which light need not be excluded, and which may serve as a seed room and store room for many of the smaller garden requisites. If a hot-water pipe can be run round these apartments from some neighbouring apparatus, so much the better, but in the fruit room proper it should only be used occasionally to dispel damp, or, in the case of very severe weather, to keep out frost. 15. Heating Apparatus. Plant houses are heated in a Heating variety of ways, but practically smoke flues and hot-water pipes are principally made use of. The cost of erection is a little more for hot water pipes than for flues, but the former are the cheaper in the end. Steam is not now used as a heating medium, except where the waste steam of a manufactory is turned to account in some adjoining garden. The use of fermenting vegetable substances in the production of heat is rapidly disappearing from our best gardens before the application of hot water, which is far more economical and certain in its effects. The Smoke Fine, that is, the continuous cavity commencing at Smoke
the back of the furnace and ending at the chimney, whan used as flue.
