34 



THE FLOEAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 



melons, I -wish to cut on the 1st of 

 July ? Is the four-feet bed too wide ? 

 Would the roots be bctler more coufined? 

 A few hints would oblige, G, C. 



Serefordslure, Jan. 18, 1859. 



[The subject of portable houses is one 

 not to be dismissed in a mere note, and as 

 the above came to hand after our pages 

 were almost made up, we must defer the 

 main question till next month. But we 

 insert the communication now, because it 

 conveys much information on the very 

 points on which advice is sought, and is in 

 every sense interesting and practical. Your 

 plan of growing cucumbers ought to an- 

 swer, provided you have sufficient heat, 

 and give enough moisture. As to allow- 

 ing the plants mu.ch root-room at first, see | 



what our "Old Gardener" said at page 

 255 of last year's volume. To give any 

 plant more root-room than it requires at 

 first will retard fruiting, and the heat and 

 moisture may make the bed sour before the 

 roots v/ork into it. Your bed is not too 

 wide for cucumbei's in full vigour, but it 

 would be an improvement to make up the 

 bed little by little as the roots requu-e 

 more room. The wood under the bed 

 ought to economize the heat, and the pipes 

 ought to be of service to aerate as well as 

 moisten the soil, but on those points we 

 would^not pronounce an ij^se dixit ; it is a 

 matter for your own individual experience. 

 Portable houses and Polmaise heating are 

 subjects that have long been on our minds, 

 aud shall be dealt with at the first oppor- 

 tunity. — Ed.] 



HOW TO PEEPARE A PEACH-TEEE BORDEE. 



In our southern counties, where light 

 sandy soils abound, the difficulty of making 

 peach and nectarine trees trained to walls 

 flourish is well known; in spring they are 

 liable to the curl, and the attacks of 

 aphides ; in summer, they are infested 

 with the red spider; so that the trees are 

 weakened, and rarely give good fruit ; they 

 seem, indeed, to detest light soils. The 

 following method of preparing borders for 

 them in such soils may be " as old as the 

 hills," but I have not seen it described by 

 any gardening author. The idea has come 

 to me, from observing peach-trees trained 

 to walls refuse to do well in the light 

 sandy soil forming a part of my niu-sery, 

 except near paths, and to grow and do 

 well for years in the stiff tenacious loam 

 forming another part. My bearing trees in 

 pots, for which 1 use tenacious loam and 

 dung, rammed down with a wooden pestle, 

 also bear and flourish almost beyond be- 

 Hef ; and so I am induced to recommend 

 that in light soils the peach-tree border 

 shoiJd be made as follows: — To a wall of 

 moderate height, say nine or ten feet, a 

 border six feet wide ; and to a wall twelve 

 feet high, one eight feet wide should be I 



marked out. If the soil be poor and ex- 

 hausted by cropping, or if it be an old 

 garden, a dressing of rottea dung and 

 tenacious loam, or even clay, equal parts, 

 five inches in thickness, should be spread 

 over the surface of the border ; it should 

 then be stirred to two feet in depth, and 

 the loam and dung weU mixed with the 

 soil. The trees may be planted during the 

 winter, and in March, in dry weather ; the 

 border all over its surface should be tho- 

 roughly rammed down with a wooden 

 rammer, so as make it like a well-trodden 

 path ; some light half-rotten manure, say 

 about from .one to two inches in depth, 

 may then be spread over it, and the opera- 

 tion is complete. This border must never 

 be stirred, except with the hoe to destroy 

 weeds, and of coxu'se never cropped ; every 

 succeeding spring, in dry weather, the 

 ramming and dressing must be repeated, 

 as the soil is always much loosened by 

 frost. If this method be foUovred, peaches 

 and nectarines may be made to flourish in 

 our dry southern counties, where they have 

 hitherto brought nothing h\\% disappoint- 

 ment. — Rivers' s Catalogue of Fruits, 



THE ORCHAED-HOTJSE. 



BY MR. KrVEES. 



" It has been and is too often the custom 

 of writers on horticulture and agriculture, 

 to write first and practice afterwards ; in 

 other words, to promulgate a pretty theory, 

 and then reduce it to practice. I have not 

 been to this manner given, for in this, 

 as well as in other instances, I have re- 



duced my practice to writing." Such were 

 the words with which Mr. Rivers com- 

 menced the preface to the original edition 

 of the " Orchard-House," published eight 

 years ago. That Mr. Rivers described in 

 that work what he had himself accom- 

 plished in the culture of fruit-trees in pots 



