404 



JOUENAIi OF HOETICULTUKE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



[ November 14, 1865. 



t now covers a space of 8 feet by 9, and this season I gathered 

 nine gallons of Plums from it, and soldtbem at Is. per gallon to 

 a wholesale dealer in fruit in the country ; moreover it is a 

 good dessert Plum. I can also speak favourably of Coe's Late 

 Ked, also from Mr. Elvers, wftch, if permitted to hang late, 

 is most delicious, as all my neighbours can testify. — John 

 Stoveld. 



MAKIXG THE MOST OF A HOUSE. 



Having frequently noticed your willingness to impart in- 

 fonnatiou, and to render service to the numerous subscribers 

 and correspondents of " our Joui'ual," I venture to ask your 

 advice under the following circumstances. 



At the sale of glass by order of the executors of the late Mr. 

 Veitch I jnirchased what was an old propagating-house. It is 

 3.3 feet in length, and 13 feet 6 inches in breadth, a three- 

 quarter span-roof, the front slope being 9 feet, and the back 

 6 feet. There are at present no front lights. The house, 

 which was only used for propagating-purposes, was divided 

 lengthwise bj- a brick wall, which served to support the ridge 

 of the roof, and a portion at one end was also divided off, and 

 nsed as a potting-shed. Now, of course, I wish to dispense 

 with all these superfluous walls, and wish to know the best 

 method of supporting the ridge of the roof. 



Next, I want you to advise me how to fit up the interior, and 

 will, therefore, tell you what I require to grow. My chief ob- 

 ject is to grow good Grapes, and perhaps a few Peaches on 

 bushes, and some flowers, such as CamelUas, Azaleas, Eoses, &c., 

 and Ferns. I presume you wiU advise me to have front lights 

 added, in which case I thought of ha\-ing a slate bench, 2 feet 

 wide in front, for my flowers, and a raised bricked-up bed in 

 the centre, in which I might plant or plunge Vines, trees, or 

 Eoses, &c. ; and it has occurred to me that I might secure two 

 crops of Grapes by planting Vines in an outside border, and 

 keeping them out until those growing in the inside bed were 

 well advanced. If you consider this plan practicable please 

 say how the Vines should be trained. Can my back wall, which 

 wiJl be some feet 9 inches in height, be put to any account ? 



I also want you to advise me how to keep the frost from 

 my Camellias, &e. Of course I have no intention to force. I 

 am incUned to believe that a flue, which can be easily managed 

 by my groom-gardener, will effect my object. Should the flue 

 be placed in the front part of the house, or should it run round 

 the raised centre bed? — that is, provided you approve of this 

 bed. My object is to make the most of my glass, and to work 

 it in the most economical manner. 



I shaU be compelled to have a new east end, which will be 

 the entrance, vroiild you place the door close against the back 

 wall, or in the centre ? 



W ill you advise me how to ventilate my house ? I thought 

 of introducing some wooden shutters into my front wall, but 

 do not see my way clearly to admit air through the roof. What 

 Grapes would you recommend me to grow ? I see the Muscat 

 Hamburgh is much recommended in jour columns for a cool 

 vinery. — Aji.iTEHB. 



[We have read over your letter carefully. With all due 

 credit for your particularity, you have left two particulars of 

 moment unnoticed — 1st, the height of the house where the 

 imequal spans meet, and the height of the present front waU, 

 or what you intend to make it. We shall suppose the height 

 at the apex or ridge-board to be from 9S to 10 feet ; and as you 

 propose having a slate shelf 2 feet wide along the front we 

 presume you mean the height there to be between 5 and 6 feet, 

 so as to secure you plenty of headway. In that case, for the 

 general purposes you propose, we would recommend yon to 

 have three out of five parts of the front glass, either moveable 

 sashes, or fixed if you have ventilators in the wall below your 

 shelf. The first would be best ; the second would scarcely 

 cost half the money. 



2nd. For fixing and keeping up the ridge-board there would 

 be the support at each end ; and then tlio simplest plan woiUd 

 be oak, or, better still, two or three neat iron pillars set on a 

 pediment of brick or stone. 



3rd. With merely keeping frost from Camellias, and nothing 

 like forcing, you could not have two crops of Grapes in the 

 house in the season by any aiTangement of Vines in the house 

 and others started outside ; but you could have some early kinds, 

 as Sweetwater, Eoyal Muscadine, &c., in pots, which would 

 come in earlier than those outside, and which need not interfere 

 much with those on the rafters. 



4th. Our proposed arrangements would be the doorway in 



the end, in front of the ridge-board, which would bring it near 

 the centre of the house as respects its width. Then we would 

 have a shelf, 2 feet wide as you propose, at front and ends, a 

 shelf or border at back the same width, a pathway all round 

 2* feet wide, and a pit in the centre 44 feet wide. If the shelf 

 were 2} feet from the ground level the pit should be a few 

 inches higher if there is plenty of head room. We would 

 prefer Peaches, Nectarines, Figs, &c., in such a pit to be in 

 pots or tubs rather than planted out, as you could move them 

 out and ])ut in other things in winter. To make much of tha 

 back wall the lower this pit is, say 18 inches, and the lower 

 the plants grown in it the better. 



5th. A flue starting low enough to comejimder the ground 

 level until you passed the doorway, going along that end above 

 ground, along the front, and across the other end, aU beneath 

 the shelf, and, therefore, out of the way, and then out into a 

 chimney, would be quite sufficient for the keeping of the 

 plants as you propose, and even forcing the A'ines a Httle if 

 you thought proper. By keeping the front outside Vines out 

 of doors until they began to break naturally, you covdd also 

 have Vines and Peaches pretty fonvard before you introduced 

 them, but not fonvard enough with a due regard to your plants 

 to give you two distinct crops in the year. 



Gth. A veiy neat and pleasant way of heating such a house, 

 would be to take the flue all round under the pathway ; the toji 

 of the flue, 9 inches wide, would thus form the top of the path- 

 way, and furnish very pleasant walking all the winter. In this 

 case the flue might be in the centre of the pathway in front, 

 and close to the pit at back, which with some rough matter at 

 the sides of the flue would give 2 or 3 feet for a border against 

 the back wall. 



7th. In this border Figs and even Peaches would do very 

 well ; but nothing wiU do well if the plants in the centre bed 

 grow to the top of the house, or if the roof be densely clothed 

 with Vine foliage. The continued success of trees in the bed 

 and on the back wall wiU depend on the Vines being kept to 

 the rafters, and the lowness of the bed plants permitting the 

 sun's rays to reach, not unobstructed, but pretty freely, the 

 back wall. 



8th. To combine the greatest floral beauty and utiUty in 

 such a house without useless crowding, we would plant the 

 back wall with Camellias and Oranges, which would be a fine 

 sight all the winter and spring months. We would keep the 

 centre bed low, and fill it with a few Vines in pots, but chiefly 

 Peaches and Nectarines, and would just give as much heat as 

 would keep the flowering plants safe and help on the Peaches, 

 allowing the Vines to break almost naturally. 



9th. We had so far anticipated the last tv.-o questions, which 

 we received in a second letter, by alluding to openings in the 

 front wall for ventilation. We had made some wooden venti- 

 lators, pivot-hung, in the middle of the wall, as you propose, 

 but considered aftenvards that we would have had iron venti- 

 lators if we had thought of it in time, as they could have been 

 sUpped in at either side of the wall. The kind we allude to is on 

 the same principle as ventOators forashpit doors. For instance, 

 suppose that the ventilator is 18 inches long and 9 inches wide, 

 that space being divided from top to bottom into quarter-of-inch 

 openings, and a quarter-inch space between, an inner plate 

 fixed in the'Same way, with similar openings, and moveable by 

 a little handle, will shut up the outside openings, or leave them 

 more or less open. Of these you would require eight in the 

 front wall. The simpler plan we adopted, was to leave spaces 

 — say eight, in your length, 1 foot square, in building the wall, 

 and in each of these have a ventilator of the requisite size, 

 pivot-hung, in the middle of the wall, as by that means the 

 ventilator would not extend much outwards when open. If the 

 pivots are fixed at about the third of the depth, the ventilator 

 will always shut itself by its own weight. Two screws act as 

 pivot and hinge to each ventilator. If your back wall is not 

 already built, we would have had similar openings, with similar 

 ventilators, just below the coping, and if hung as we said you 

 could open them, by a string attached to the upper part, less 

 or more as you wished; and whenever you wished to shut the 

 ventilator you would have only to give free play to the string. 

 Such ventilators, if placed in the middle of thewaU, as respects 

 thickness, would always be out of the way, and interfere with 

 nothing inside or outside. In one sense they would not be so 

 good as the iron ventilators with the slide, as with the latter, 

 and not more than quarter-inch openings, a mouse even could 

 not pass in. Four or five of such ventilators would do in the back 

 wall, if you had an opening at each end in the angle imder the 

 rid"e-bo'ard — sav a base of 18 inches, and the perpendicxilar of 



