518 THE GARDENER. [Nov. 



would be necessary in order to bring about a thorough state of ripen- 

 ing in Vines, Peaches, and other fruit-trees. But it is to be hoped that 

 those who are BO favourably circumstanced will not forget the scores of 

 places where fruit has to be grown in low, old-fashioned houses, with 

 every square of glass no larger than a biscuit, and wooden rafters thick 

 enough to make sleepers for a line of railway. 



These conditions, together with perhaps insufficient means of ventila- 

 tion, have been great drawbacks duriug the past summer; and say 

 what people may, they are sure to have left their mark behind them — 

 more especially where thick planting is adopted, and in gardens where 

 an adequate staff is not allowed and work has fallen into arrears, and 

 in the struggle to make the best of a season beset with great difficulties, 

 the work of pinching and thinning to the necessary degree has been 

 unavoidably neglected. 



The wood in our earliest Peach-house is greener now, at the begin- 

 ning of October, in Dorsetshire, than I have ever seen it in Lancashire 

 at the same period, with the balance of favour, as regards structure, being 

 in every respect on the side of the former. 



Pot- Vines and Peach-trees in pots are so wonderfully cheap nowadays 

 as to render the suggestion I have thrown out practicable in every 

 garden of ordinary pretensions. 



A dozen Pot- Vines, and a like number of Peach-trees in pots, of the 

 early kinds — the latter of which might be brought forward in any 

 house with a night temperature of 45°, and be pushed along afterwards 

 when the fruit is set — would yield a few dishes of fruit at the com- 

 mencement of the season, and spare the early-forcing until the first 

 day of the new year dawns upon us, and which, I hope, will bring 

 the advent of a more happy augury for fruit prospects in succeeding 

 years. 



It is for pot work that such varieties as Early Beatrice are worth 

 growing, as in a pot it is always a portable subject, and can be made 

 amenable to any condition that occasion may requre. Amongst Nec- 

 tarines Lord Napier is a grand pot variety : it grows to a large size, 

 and forces well. 



A better quality of Grapes might also be procured from the pot- 

 Vines by dividing them into two batches ; and by cropping the last 

 half rather lightly, and starting them a little later, finer berries and 

 better finish would be obtained. 



Where it is proposed to grant this short period of grace or recupera- 

 tion to hard-forced subjects, the situation should be taken advantage 

 of to renew the borders partially ; and, where it is necessary, if pos 

 sible, also to renew very old trees that are showing signs of decay, with 

 younger ones of appropriate kinds, or good bearing trees — where they 

 can be spared — by economical thinning out on the outside walls. This 

 work should be undertaken at once, — first, by rooting out all worthless 

 trees, and thoroughly cleansing everything inside the house — the trees 



