The Garden Under Glass

xiv INTRODUCTION ' houses, there is no clear dividing line between fruit and flowers. We often find them grown together in the same house, while seldom indeed is a house given over exclus-ively to forcing vegetables, that work being done in fruit and plant houses where space is available and the condi-tions correct. As among my readers there will be some who can afford to have a house specially for the display of decorative plants, I have dealt with the conservatory, and also for the same reason with the vinery; but throughout the book I have kept before me the needs of the man who has but one greenhouse and is afflicted by the possession of that ill-matched pair—limited space and uniimited ambition. I have endeavoured to make my information clear and concise, and for the sake of those who are on the very threshold of garden knowledge I have avoided the use of technical terms, and have presumed no knowledge what-ever on the part of the reader. I have endeavoured to show clearly not only what to do and when to do it, but what is more important, how to do the actual work in such a way as to ensure success. This much I may safely claim, that after a careful perusal of this book the reader will be in a fair way to having a greenhouse affording beautiful plants and flowers for his rooms, delicious fruit for his table and fresh early vegetables for the kitchen, besides giving earlier and better plants for his vegetable plot and flower garden : these constitute, to my mind, a