THE FLOEAL WOELD AND GAEDEN GUIDE. 29 



ber ; by giving them too much pot room, or too poor a compost ; by imper- 

 fect di-ainage ; or by selecting for the purpose unsuitable sorts, or suitable 

 sorts grafted on stocks not of the right dwarfing nature. 



Some people have used their orchard -houses as conservatories, others 

 as hybernatories for bedding plants, others as vineries, by which the trees 

 were shaded and became scarecrows ; but well managed, an orchard-house 

 is one of the choicest appendages to a garden in which a lady or gentle- 

 man amateur takes delight in a daily Avalk and daily occupation. When 

 the Sim shines on a bleak spring day, you pass at once from the ti'eacherous 

 cKmate of Britain to that of the south of Prance as soon as you enter, and 

 the walk, arched over with the almost meeting branches laden to their 

 points with fragrant blossoms, is an arcade of floral beauty, in itself suffi- 

 cient recompense for the cost and trouble incurred to obtain it. But to 

 see apricots of three years old, pictures of beautj^ as to the symmetrical 

 spread of their branches into the form of a close bush, each tree laden with 

 its three or four dozen of ripe fruit, is still more gratifying, and at one lift 

 the best of the batch may be transferred from the house to the dinner-table 

 or side-board, and there constitute a decoration unequalled in the whole 

 range of domestic amenities. Then as to the expense and trouble, these are 

 but trifling considering that the result is certain, provided the practice 

 be good. Houses such as Mr. llivers describes may, in most places, be 

 constructed at one pound per foot run. The estimates given in his work 

 for the two houses, which we have figured at page 37, are, for the lean-to, 

 £28 5*., and for the span, £27 10*.; including everything, timber, glass, 

 labour, and painting. In many places the cutting down of a few useless 

 oaks and larches would provide the timber at once at the mere cost of 

 labour for cutting it into lengths ; and by the adoption of the cheapest 

 method in every detail, we believe such houses of from fourteen to sixteen 

 feet wide might be put up at 10s. per foot rim. We know one instance 

 of a house, thirty feet long by foiu'teen feet wide, which was built and 

 supplied with trees and pots complete for £25 in all. Then as to trouble, 

 there is no great task to perform in the management of an orchard-house ; 

 it is the regularity of attention, such as an amateur must give if he takes 

 a real interest in horticulture, that insures success ; not sudden fits of 

 vigilance and the doing of too much under the influence of an intermittent 

 enthusiasm. Some of Mr. Rivers' s trees have been in the same pots for 

 nine years in succession, and continue still to bear well and make a suffi- 

 ciency of new wood ; and there are instances on record of peaches thriving 

 in the same pots lor twenty years. It is allowing the roots to feed below 

 and giving annual top-dressing that explain how a tree in a pot is enabled 

 to sustain itself in such confinement ; and it may also be added, that it is 

 so completely under the control of the cultivator that he may do almost as 

 he Avill with it, according to the amount of his skill, patience, and perse- 

 verance. 



Our remarks last month on the evils that sometimes arise from the pre- 

 sence in the soil of wood undergoing decay, were not intended to terrifj^^ 

 but to warn our readers against a possible soiu'ce of mischief. Several 

 correspondents have written respecting it, and with some of them the 

 opinion seems to be that, if dead wood is so injurious, gardening is at end. 

 In an interesting letter from " Four Subscribers," we are asked, " Do not 

 oranges like to root into their boxes?" And another, "E. T.," conjectures 



