122 THE GARDENER. [March 



and a steaming-tray along the front. There cannot be a greater mis- 

 take than that of under-heating with either pipes or boiler-power. It 

 is much safer and more economical to err on the side of having too 

 much than too little. It saves fire, and keeps up the required tem- 

 perature without violently heating the pipes. 



For late crops to be ripened without fire-heat, and when the object 

 is to have Peaches on to the end of October, the span-roofed form of 

 Peach-house is also best. At the same time, when an existing garden 

 wall can be covered with a lean-to glass roof, it answers perfectly well. 

 A house of this description — say 1 1 feet wide, with trees covering the 

 whole back Avail, and so far up the roof from the front as not to shade the 

 trees on the back wall — gives great space for Peaches. There should be 

 ample ventilation at front and top, kept constantly on after all danger 

 from frost is over. I have gathered Peaches — Walburton Admirable 

 — as late as the 24th October at Archerfield, one of the earliest parts 

 of Scotland ; while earlier varieties in the same house were ripe the 

 middle of August. In a house of this description there should always 

 be a flow and return pipe, to keep frost from the trees when in blossom. 

 I have known Peach-blossom destroyed in narrow lean-to Peach-houses 

 by severe spring frosts. And with the means of keeping frost out, the 

 floor of the house is available for flower-garden j^lants. 



In all Peach-houses ventilation should be amply provided for. In 

 the case of very early forcing, when the crop is all gathered before the 

 1st of June, the top and bottom ventilation should be very abundant ; 

 indeed it is a good plan to have the roof constructed so that the lights 

 can be partly, if not wholly, removed for two or three months in the 

 heat of summer. At all events, the ventilation should be amply suffi- 

 cient to keep the house as cool as possible. The whole of the side 

 lights of span-roofed houses should open, and the top ventilation be 

 made so 'as to open to a considerable extent. In recommending the 

 covering of existing Peach-walls with glass, I am fully convinced that 

 this will always be found satisfactory, inasmuch as without doing any- 

 thing else to the Peach-trees, if in other respects they are in moderate 

 condition, the mere covering of them with glass will not only insure 

 crops of Peaches every year, but all blistering of the foliage, and most 

 of the other ills which beset the Peach in the greater number of the 

 gardens of this country, will be got rid of. At Archerfield I had a 

 Peach-wall covered on which the trees formerly did very little good, 

 and after being covered with a lean-to house, they speedily became 

 healthy and vigorous, annually bearing great quantities of fine fruit. 

 The same applies to the Peach- wall at Dalkeith, and other places that 

 could be named. 



