AN ENCYCLOPADIA 
OF HORTICULTURE. 513 
Orchard House—continued. 
trees may be pinched to three leaves or joints; bushes 
and pyramids may be allowed from four to six. Over- 
crowding must specially be prevented, otherwise sun- 
shine, light, and a free circulation of air, are much 
impeded, to the detriment of the fruits, if there are 
any, or, at any rate, to the proper ripening of the 
shoots for the following year. Young trained trees of 
all sorts, suitable for culture in Orchard Houses, may 
be purchased from nurserymen who make such things a 
speciality, already established in pots, and set with 
blossom buds. Pruning may be performed in early 
spring, but it will not amount to very much, if summer 
pinching has been properly attended to, beyond thinning, 
and removing weak and superfluous shoots. 
Airing and Temperatures. The Orchard House, above 
all other garden structures, should be provided with 
plenty of ventilation. This matter has already been 
referred to, but may receive a further notice. A span- 
roofed house, for the purpose named, should, preferably, 
run north and south; consequently, the side next the 
east will need to be carefully managed when cold winds 
from that quarter prevail, and there are any blossoms 
or tender foliage. In winter, the house, supposing the 
trees are inside, should be kept wide open whenever the 
temperature is above the freezing point. In spring, under 
such treatment, the trees will naturally move somewhat 
earlier than they would outside, yet they must never be 
unduly excited. A night temperature of 40deg. will be high 
enough, or even less than this, if the weather is severe. 
It should be remembered, that a confined atmosphere is 
more destructive to fruit blossoms under glass, parti- 
cularly Apricots, Cherries, Plums, and Pears, than even 
a little frost. A circulation of air should, therefore, 
always be maintained, by leaving the ventilators open, 
more or less, night and day, according to the weather, 
until the fruits are properly set. Pears and Plums 
especially require a dry atmosphere, and plenty of air, 
to insure their setting freely. If fire-heat is at com- 
mand, it will prove of immense advantage at this season, 
should frost or very dull weather prevail, yet it must 
be most cautiously applied, or more harm than good 
may result. By the time all the fruits are properly set, 
the season will have considerably advanced, and more 
solar heat will be procurable. This must be taken full 
advantage cf, by closing early in the afternoons, with 
the exception of a little ventilation, which should be 
always kept on. In summer, early attention must be 
given to airing each fine morning, and the greatest 
possible amount of air be gradually admitted during 
the hotter portion of the day. No fixed scale of tem- 
peratures for the summer need be given, as it would be 
unnecessary to attempt following it in dealing with fruit- 
trees in Orchard Houses. The sun usually supplies suffi- 
cient heat after the end of April or May, without the 
use of hot water; and it is left for the cultivator to 
moderate its, at times, overpowering influence, by the 
admission of air, and the application of water about the 
house, and to utilise and conserve its valuable proper- 
ties, by nearly closing the structure each day when the 
sun’s power has sufficiently declined. 
Syringing is an important point to be attended to in 
the culture of Orchard-house trees. From the time the 
fruits are safely set, until they begin to ripen, each tree 
should be thoroughly syringed, both in early morning 
and in the afternoon, except at times when experience 
and the weather suggest omissions. water used 
should be of a similar temperature to that of the house, 
and it should be applied—preferably through a garden 
engine — with considerable force, after the foliage gets 
strong enough to withstand it. So soon as the fruits 
are gathered, pot trees may be stood in a sunny posi- 
tion outside, to thoroughly ripen their wood. They 
must, however, receive an equal amount of attention, in 
Vol. II. 
MISSOURI 
Orchard House—continued. 
respect of watering, &c., as before. Trees planted under 
glass must have all the exposure possible. 
Insects. Orchard-house trees seldom escape the attacks 
of several most destructive insect pests. No sooner are 
leaves developed, than Green or Black Aphides appear; 
sometimes the latter are to be seen first on the wood, or 
fruit blossoms. Fumigation, on two or three successive 
evenings, will dislodge these pests; but this must only be 
practised previous to, or after, the trees have flowered. 
Red Spider is invariably found, in greater or less quan- 
tities, on fruit-trees under glass. It can be kept in 
check by the frequent syringing already recommended, 
both beneath and above the leaves, but seldom altogether 
destroyed by any available application. Brown Scale is 
also frequently to be seen on fruit-trees; it fixes itself 
in crevices, and on the bark, and can best be destroyed 
by hand-washing, or scrubbing with a rather strong 
solution of soft-soap water. 
ORCHESTES (Spring Weevils). The name given to 
a genus of Curculionide (small beetles) that, at times, 
do great harm to Beech-trees aud hedges, and, in a less 
degree, to Oaks, and to a few other trees. They are 
usually about bin. long, but may vary from vsin. to Zin., 
and, in colour, are reddish, brown, or black. The body 
is nearly oval; the head is small, and the beak about as 
long as the thorax, and strongly bent downwards; the 
antenne are situated near the base of the beak, and 
are eleven-jointed and elbowed, with the club oblong- 
ovate. But the most ready means of recognising them 
is their power of leaping, which is given by the great 
size of the thighs of the last pair of legs. The enlarged 
thighs contain correspondingly powerful muscles, and the 
beetles, when touched, leap surprising distances. 
Mode of Life. Those that survive the winter eat their 
way into buds, and the females lay their eggs alongside 
the midribs, on the lower surface of the leaves. The 
larvæ burrow into the leaves, and there form large gal- 
leries or patches between the surfaces, and in these 
change to pupæ, from which the beetles scon emerge. 
A severe attack by these insects on any kind of tree or 
shrub causes the leaves to become prematurely withered, 
or even useless, and considerably injures the health of 
the plants. 
Remedies. In the mornings, shake the beetles off the 
plants, over a tarred vessel, from which they cannot 
escape, and pick off and destroy the leaves that show 
mines of the larve. Of course, both methods are ap- 
plicable only to small trees. Very little can be done 
to limit the injury to forest-trees; but of these we are 
not treating here. The most hurtful insects in this 
genus are: O. Fagi—a small species (win. long), black, 
with a faintly reddish, less often greenish, thin coating 
of short hairs, limbs paler, thighs one-toothed — often 
very abundant in June and July on Beeches; and 
O. Quercus—which is larger (šin. to tin. long), of a dull 
brick-red colour, slightly hairy, eyes black, wing-cases 
with a large triangular ashy patch over their place of 
meeting at the base, thighs of front legs each one- 
toothed, of hinder pair each with a double row of six or 
seven spines — frequent on Oaks. Others occur on 
Alder, Hazel, Elm, &c., but do not call for a longer 
notice. 
ORCHIDEZS. A very large order of monocotyle- 
donous plants, and one of the most natural families of 
the vegetable kingdom. Herbaceous terrestrial perennials, 
with tuberous or fascicled roots; epiphytes (with or 
without pseudo-bulbs), found generally growing on the 
trunks of trees, to which they attach themselves by 
their long adventitious roots; or saprophytes. Flowers 
solitary, spicate, racemose or paniculate; perianth supe- 
rior, irregular, of six coloured segments, the three outer 
(the sepals) nearly similar, free, or the two lower ones 
3 
BOTANICAL 
: „ GARDEN. 
