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Farquharson, told my groom that everything was destroyed there also. 

 At Milton Abbey, the seat of Baron Hambro', except under glass, the 

 case is the same. Except in high cold situations, where blossoms are late, 

 I expect you will hear of disaster. I never saw trees more beautifully 

 bloomed than they were here ; but I have suffered greatly. My faithful 

 sheets, however, kept on by day, only during violent winds and any 

 rain, have saved me a tolerable sprinkling of Peaches. My Apricots 

 having been cut hard for new wood, had little or no bloom, but what 

 there was is gone The white Nectarine has only six or seven. The 

 red Apricot is replaced by a new tree, as its stock was old, gnarled, 

 and twisted. My three Peach trees, which last year yielded of good 

 fruit 196, 274, and 554, or altogether 1024, have this year 39, 97, 

 and 119, or 255 well-set fruit, which are so dispersed as to require 

 no thinning. I began covering on the 6th of March, which was ten or 

 twelve days earlier than last year. Say what people will against 

 sheets (removable), I will back them against rabbit nets or Fir 

 boughs. If ever I change them for anything, it will be for a glass 

 case. With regard to my white Nectarine tree, I may observe, that I 

 attribute the failure in some measure to its being more exposed to a 

 most violent wind, which tore even the sheets from the nails. A violent 

 wind is most injurious to blossoms ; moreover, the foliage by the sheets 

 is preserved, and beautifully luxuriant and green, and never suffers 

 from curl to any appreciable extent. I have no desire to open the 

 protection question at all ; let "necessity be the mother of invention." 

 Last year, Sir John Smith's gardener covered the trees with cheese- 

 cloth, tacked to three rafters — with a coping, very thick, of Fir boughs ; 

 and they had, in a very exposed garden, the best crop of wall fruit 

 which they have had for years. I am, however, myself disinclined to 

 any fixture, save that of glass casing. Reading over the other day, in 

 your Florist, the protection controversy, it gave me much pleasure to 

 see, that an old friend, Mr. Johnson, formerly head gardener to Mr. 

 Brouncker, of Boveridge, Dorset, and now head gardener to his Grace 

 the Duke of Wellington, at Strathfieldsaye, approves of wall fruit 

 protection. Of course, I cannot compare sheeting to glass casing. 

 The fruit is safer and earlier under the latter ; and I believe it would 

 never fail in such a situation, unless the trees were " stifled." What 

 is the cause of non-setting and dwindling of Strawberries in forcing 

 houses ? — Want of air. What is it that mildews Grapes ? — I firmly 

 believe that it is pent up damp, and want of dry air. The beauty of 

 the orchard house, forcing houses, greenhouses, and the glass-cased 

 wall at Critchill, is this, — that you can give them what air you please ; 

 the orchard house, and 160 feet of glass-cased wall can be aired to 

 any amount, in a moment, by machinery. It is quite a first-rate 

 performance, and, with the successful crop of fruit, is well worthy of 

 review. I saw among the forced Strawberries, a plant of Ananias 

 Lecoq, which I sent there, and it justified fully what I said in a 

 previous article, viz., that I thought it would make a good forcer. The 

 Keens were good, very good, but were not so sturdy in leaf or stem 

 — two things most important where supernatural heat is to be borne. 

 The leaves are of thick substance, good form, and the crowns bold ; and 

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