June 5, 1873. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTXTBE AND COTTAGE GAEDSNER. 



453 



with bars of angle iron uniting tlie smaller bars with it. The 

 glazing is of the nsual order, and the squares upwards of 

 l(i inches wide. The house is an exceedingly light one, and 

 its appearance, as seen from a little way off, all that could be 

 desired. 



I will now endeavour to describe the contents of these houses, 

 and shall begin with the shorter of the two, as it is that which 

 the visitor first enters. It has been planted with Peaches only, 

 and it would be impossible to find any more promising than 

 they. The glazing of the house was only commenced on the 11th 

 of March, 1871, and the trees (maidens) were all planted at that 

 time or a few days before, and now many of them are up- 

 wards of 10 feet high, and 5 or <j feet through, with every twig 

 laden with blossom buds, which at the time of my visit 

 (February 12th) were just ready to burst. The trees were 

 planted in three rows, and were 12 feet apart in the rows. The 

 front and back row trees were opposite each other, and the 



removed, and the young Peach trees will speedily occupy the 



whole space. 



The lesson to be learned from this ought not to be lost. 

 Here ai'e two houses of immense size, only 60 feet apart, both 

 with borders made of the natural soil of the place with some 

 admixture, the one planted with Peaches and the other with 

 Grapes, and while the former luxuriates to a degree hardly to 

 be expected in our latitude, forming excellent bearing wood 

 from 1 to 2 feet in height. Vines are by no means satisfac- 

 tory. A better proof tliat the two plants require a different 

 soU cannot well be furnished, because the example is on so 

 large a scale that accidental circumstances are not likely to have 

 exercised any influence in the matter, all or nearly all tha 

 plants of both kinds in both houses being alike good or mdif- 

 ferent, yet both houses are treated alike, and both depend ou 

 sun heat alone for increasing their temperature. 



Had the houses been buUt and their borders formed on the 



Cronad,_Zin^^^^ 



The above section represents the two houses with the grounii rising 8 feet between them. A row of pillars, 8 or 10 feet apart, support the front roof as shown* 



middle ones were placed at an angle between. Some wires 

 were fastened to the back wall to partly train the trees to ; but 

 little was done in that way, and wires were also strained under- 

 neath the glass on the front for the same purpose, but the 

 trees there, too, were allowed much of their own way — in fact, 

 Mr. Godwin said he had done very Uttle to them excepting 

 nipping off the tops of some very gross shoots during the grow- 

 ing season, and now and then cutting off one or two that were 

 encroaching on their neighbours ; yet such was the fruitful 

 character of the trees, that I noticed in some places where 

 the base of a shoot almost as thick as one's thumb had been 

 left some 2 or 3 inches long, that a healthy fine-looking fruit- 

 bud had been formed ; and Mr. Godwin pointed out to me a 

 Peach tree standing near the doorway that he said had been 

 so far injured during the summer of 1871, by wheelbarrows 

 and other traffic passing it, that in the March of 1872 it was 

 only some 4 or .5 inches high, whUe it is now quite 10 feet high, 

 and about half as much in diameter. The two or three first 

 shoots made last summer, which were stopped, formed others 

 equally strong, which, being also stopped, formed a number of 

 blossom-bearing laterals, or rather sub-laterals. These were 

 moderately short-jointed and well fui-nished with fruit-buds. 

 There are several much larger trees, and unless their growth 

 be checked by a crop I hai'dly know what wUl become of them. 

 The trees were all maidens two years ago, and after being 

 worked most of them have been untouched by the knife, or even 

 the finger and thumb. The cause of their success appears to 

 be, that the soU in which they are growing seems to answer all 

 the requirements of the Peach and Nectarine, of which several 

 varieties are grown, all in a state of healthy vigour and ap- 

 parent fruitfulness. The house is not heated, and a crop of 

 Potatoes planted all over the ground had tops several inches 

 high. 



We now come to the further and larger of these houses, that 

 385 feet long, and here perhaps as important a lesson may be 

 learned as in the other case, but in a different way. This 

 house was prepared in exactly the same manner, but was built 

 two years previously. In the first season Cucumbers were 

 grown in it, then Vines were planted along the front in the 

 usual way, the front wall being on arches ; but to show that 

 the Vine and the Peach do not alike luxuriate on the same soil, 

 the progress of the Vines had not been at all satisfactory, and 

 Mr. Godwin had determined to turn the structure into a Peach 

 house. Peach trees are planted in it much in the same way as 

 in the first house ; one being planted between the Vines along 

 the front, at the same distance as in the other house — viz., 

 12 feet ; but the Vines are left for one more year to see if 

 their tendency to mUdew can be overcome ; if not, they will be 



debris of a sandstone quarry instead of a limestone one, I ex- 

 pect the Vines would have been more promising, as I have 

 generally remarked that the best Grapes are met with in dis- 

 tricts where such a subsoU is met with, excepting in cases 

 where great expense has been incurred in bringing soU from a 

 distance, and, of course, in such cases the natural soil of the 

 district plays a secondary part ; but here it was left to do the 

 whole, with only some unimportant additions in the way of 

 manure. 



Before leaving this spot I was shown by Mr. Godwin the 

 commencement of another house behind those already de- 

 scribed, and sufiiciently far back to insure no injurious result 

 arising from shadmg, and, as will be understood, the houses, 

 standing as they do on the side of a hUl, have a consider- 

 able advantage in this respect. A great part of the back wall 

 was buUt, and men were wheeling soil into what would even- 

 tually be the inside of the house before the front wall was 

 buUt, for it must be observed that any contrivance likely to 

 lessen labour was taken advantage of. I should not wonder if 

 in a short time another house, only a few feet shorter than 

 the other two, were made. In the first house advantage has 

 been taken of a spring of water that issues from the rock, to 

 carry it in pipes, with tanks at every 20 or .SO feet, so as to afford 

 a water supply; but the second house, being on higher ground, 

 could not be fed from this source, and Mr. Godwin contem- 

 plates fixing an hydraulic ram at the bottom of his ground 

 to supply the whole. A plot of ground at the bottom of all is 

 planted with Strawberries, which have done remarkably well, 

 and there are some young standard Pears and Damsons equally 

 promising, the wood of the latter being of that fine deep 

 black hue which denotes the best of health, and the bloom- 

 buds are abundant all over the tree. 



Besides the above houses, Mr. Godwin has erected one ad- 

 joining his own dwelling, which is on the opposite side of the 

 town, and nearly a mUe away. This house, which has recently 

 been enlarged, is also much larger than houses of a like kind 

 usually are, and as part of it was built some years ago, was 

 heated with hot-water pipes, and planted with Vines, it had 

 all the appearance of an established vinery. Originally it had 

 been a sort of half-span, one of the lights (the short one) rest- 

 ing on the boundary wall, but as the owner obtained possession 

 of the other side, the long rafter was made still longer, and a 

 long one added on the other side, so that now it is a full span- 

 roofed house, with front hghts respectively 2 and 4 feet high, 

 the length of rafter on the two sides being 26 and 29 feet. It 

 will therefore be seen it is a large house, the length being 70 feet, 

 and the height to the ridge I'.l feet. Some COOO feet of glass 

 was required to glaze it, which was done much in the same way 



