THE ELORAL WORLD AND GARDEN GUIDE. 275 



supply of water will be necessary, but in the season of rest only 

 give enough to keep the foliage plump and fresh; no manure water 

 will be required the first year, but it will be of immense benefit to 

 them if they are watered alternately with weak manure water, and 

 clear soft water. "Water in which sheep-droppings have been 

 steeped makes the best liquid manure with which I am acquainted, 

 and is far more suitable for this purpose than stimulating manures 

 like guano. 



ORCHARD-HOUSE MANAGEMENT. 



BY WILLIAM COLE, 

 Head Gardener, Ealing Park, Middlesex. 



jjRTJIT-GrROWTNGr in pots is one of the greatest delusions 

 ever palmed upon the horticultural community. The 

 only persons who have derived any benefit from the 

 adoption of the system are the nurserymen who sup- 

 plied the trees. It appears incredible that men engaged 

 in fruit-growing all their lives should expect amateurs, who are 

 engaged in other ways during the day, and have, only an hour or so 

 to devote to their gardens in the evening, to meet with much success 

 in the pot culture of fruit trees. I am not writing this because I 

 have not been able to secure crops from trees grown in pots, but 

 because I know it requires more than double the skill and attention 

 to get the same quantity of fruit from them than it does from trees 

 planted out in a border. All stone fruits are remarkably sus- 

 ceptible to changes and checks of any kind, especially in connection 

 with the supply of moisture to the roots, and a tree when cramped 

 in a pot, and growing freely, requires watering twice and sometimes 

 three times a day. Yet this is the system that people with little 

 knowledge, and still less time on their hands, have been advised to 

 follow, as the one most likely to give them the most profitable results. 

 There is yet another delusion in connection with orchard-houses 

 that requires to be swept away. TJnheated houses have been 

 advised for fruit-growing, but they are practically useless, even 

 when the trees are planted out. When good crops can be had out 

 of doors, fruit can generally be had in unheated houses ; but in 

 seasons of total failure outside, like that of last spring, where is the 

 fruit inside ? If it were possible to get returns of all the failures 

 this year in unheated houses, I will undertake to say that they could 

 be numbered by the thousand. Trees covered with glass come into 

 flower a fortnight or month earlier than others out of doors, and as 

 glass is such a capital conductor, they are exposed to the same 

 degree of cold as trees out of doors, because the protection afforded 

 by the glass is so slight that the temperature of the orchard-house 

 in March would be no higher than the temperature out of doors in 

 April. Consequently the trees derive little or no benefit from the 

 protection of the glass. My impression is that good crops of 

 peaches and nectarines can be had out of doors two seasons out of 

 three, if the trees receive attention during the growing season, to 



