The cost of hothouses varies so greatly for the size of the house that it is hard to draw a comparison.  A modern steel frame house containing 10,000 sq. ft. of glass can be built for about $4,000.00, or a house one-half that size can be built for $10,000.00 and is no better than its cheaper rival.  A small house say 16x80 ft., heated with a brick furnace and flue and hot water coil can be built for from $350.00 to $400.00, where one does not have to hire skilled labor.  A hothouse of any size is very satisfactory, as in cold, stormy weather, when we can’t even look into a hotbed, plants can be kept growing and there is always something we can do and be comfortable while we are doing it.  It is impossible to use a hotbed all winter, as no matter how much manure is put into it in the fall it will cool out and be worthless long before spring.

[Illustration:  Showing hotbeds and greenhouse at F. H. Gibbs’ market gardens.]

With a good hothouse four crops of lettuce can be raised during the fall and winter, and a crop of cucumbers in the spring and early summer.

Each crop of lettuce sells for from 20c to 25c per dozen; the plants are set six inches apart each way, making about four per square foot of bench room.

The cucumber crop generally pays as well as two crops of lettuce and is usually planted to come into bearing early in June and kept bearing through July, or until the outdoor cucumbers are on the market.  In the so-called summer just passed (1915), there were no outdoor cucumbers, and they were kept bearing through August and September.  Cucumbers grown in hotbeds cannot be kept in bearing more than six weeks before the vines go to pieces and will not sell for as high a price as hothouse grown.  With favorable weather I have always thought I could grow a crop of lettuce in less time in a hotbed than in a hothouse, but with cold, cloudy weather the advantage is on the side of the hothouse.  Much less time is required to do the ventilating and watering in a hothouse than with beds, and the soil must be in the highest state of fertility for either one.

While hotbeds will always be desirable in many localities on account of the small first cost, the days of the large commercial hotbed yard is passed, and there are now around Minneapolis 5,000 hotbed sash that will not be put down next spring, or if put down, used only on cold frames, all owing to the scarcity of fresh horse manure.

While it is a great satisfaction to have a hothouse or hotbeds and grow vegetables in winter, the life of the market gardener is not one continuous round of pleasure, as lice, white fly, red spider and thrip, mildew and fungous rot are always ready for a fight, and the gardener must always be on his guard and beat them to it at their first appearance, or the labor of weeks will be lost.

An Ideal Flower Garden for a Country Home.

M. H. WETHERBEE, FLORIST, CHARLES CITY, IOWA.