September 2.1, I860. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



237 



For seed, raiso your Asters early, and forward them in pots. 

 Keep somo of them all tho season in the greenhouse ; plant 

 ont others. ( rimrd especially against thrips ; keep dry while 

 in tho last stage of ripening, using even tho stove if you have 

 one. With this treatment you will havo such seed as yon 

 never had before. — C. 



USES OF COCOA-NUT FIBRE REFUSK. 

 To " T. R.'s " list, which you publishod last week at page 215, 

 you should add the following : — 



11. For hiding summer mulchings when digging-in cannot 

 be resorted to. It saves loss of power by evaporation, keeps 

 down surface weeds, and gives a look of great neatness ; and, 

 moreover, where ladies gather flowers from the beds is invalu- 

 able for its cleanness, wet or dry. When the plants are re- 

 moved it can, with advantage, be dug in with the mulching. 



12. To cover the unsightliness of pit linings, where dung or 

 litter is used. It also keeps in the heat of these. 



13. To strew under the shelves of greenhouses, where it 

 catches falling water, keeps up a gentle evaporating mois- 

 ture for a considerable time, and promotes cleanliuess, being so 

 easily swept up and replaced. — D. S. 



EARLY FORCING-HOUSE. 



We are about to erect a forcing-house for growing early Cu- 

 cumbers, Melons, forced Roses, Hyacinths, Strawberries, Kidney 

 Beans, and, perhaps, a few Vines in pots. We start a vinery 

 on the 1st of February ; so you see it is principally mid- 

 winter work. 



There are a 10-feet south wall and a hipped roof, for economy 

 of fuel and easy management ; and I propose to sink the floor 

 about 18 inches below the ground level for the same reason. 

 The back bed to be over a hollow chamber for bottom heat to 

 Cucumbers and Melons ; the front one to be open trellis to set 

 pots upon, as I shall want to grow a few fine-foliaged stove 

 plants. The house is to be 12 feet wide. What angle of roof 

 do your prefer ? I should like the roof to be a fixture. I would 

 have sliding boards in the front wall, and lights not to meet by 

 about a foot at the ridge, and have a wooden flap or shutter to 

 rise and fall by a crunk. I propose four pipes, two on each 

 side. Do you think they will be enough ? — J. A. 



[Your proposed plan of a hipped roof for your early forcing- 

 house, Cucumbers, Melons, &c, will answer well, more espe- 

 cially if the back wall rises as high as the ridge of the hip, as 

 that will be a protection from the north. As economy of fuel, 

 however, is your chief object, we think you had better dispense 

 with a hip altogether. By taking your sash-bar rafters right 

 from beneath the coping of the wall at back to a wall plate in 

 front, you will havo as good a slope as if you raised the hip 

 higher ; and if you come down a foot or 15 inches lower in front, 

 you will have prettj well as steep a slope, and there will be less 

 trouble and expense in every way. Your front wall inside 

 would then be from I to -U feet high, which would give you 

 height enough for your path in the middle, and you could have 

 ventilators in front as proposed, and either have a small ven- 

 tilator from 9 to 12 inches wide Amg the top, or about six 

 openings made in the back wall. With such an arrangement 

 the bed in front would be sunk, so that the covering over the 

 pipes would only be a couple of inches or so from them, and 

 that, too, would be an advantage. A few small holes should 

 open from the pathway into the chamber, that there may be 

 a circulation of air there. Then we would make the front pit 

 the Cucumber-pit — in fact, we would do so in any case. The 

 back pit we would be inclined tj cover over in the same way — 

 the height from the pipes is less important — and chiefly that 

 the bottoms of the pots may be kept more moist than if near 

 the heating-pipes on spars. If this, too, were covered in and 

 appropriate! to plants, a few slides might be made in the side of 

 the passage to let heat pass into the atmosphere of the house. 

 Even that, however, would not be sufficient for such a house 

 in midwinter, and for a high temperature then. You would re- 

 quire from 00 to 70 feet more piping in your 30- feet house, 

 and the extra expense for piping would soon be paid in the 

 saving of fuel, and you would always secure a sweet instead of 

 a scorching heat. We would prefer this extra piping to be 

 above the beds ; but if the sight of the pipes is objectionable, 

 then three pipes could go in each chamber, and the atmospheric 

 temperature might be regulated by slides in the pathway. 



Such a house as that described would be very useful for tho 

 general purposes you mention. Most people like their own 

 plans best, and, therefore, v.r will Bay thai the proposed roof, 

 No. 2, will be tho best for your purpose, and your proposed 

 double ridgo with the ventilator between will answer very well. 

 Even then, however, we would use the front bed for early Cu- 

 cumbers ; the back one would come in for succession crops, and 

 the beds could be changed from plants to Cucumbers, as desir- 

 able. Means must be taken for securing moisture in tho 

 atmosphere. See " H.," on vineries, published to-day.] 



ORCHARD-HOUSE CULTURE. 



Far bo it from me to take amiss the good-humoured raillery, 

 published at page 181, of your eorp spondent " S. B." He is 

 evidently a bit of a satirist, and if I wished to retort in a kindred 

 vein I might just hint, in the most delicate manner in the 

 world (as Mr. Chucks would Bay), that the same absence of 

 sun which he deplores as having rendered " his fruit poor in 

 flavour and sadly deficient in sweetness," had produced a 

 similar effect upon his criticism ; but that would sound snap- 

 pish, and I do not really deem him a sour critic, and even if I 

 did, that would be no more reason for my biting than it would 

 be to take a mouthful out of a Peach that was devoid of sac- 

 charine juice. Besides, I must candidly admit that, however 

 viciously disposed, I could searcely afford on the present occa- 

 sion to dip my pen in gall, seeing that on one point I am con- 

 scious that " S. B." has me decidedly " on the hip." 



My enthusiasm undoubtedly betrayed me into one inad- 

 vertent expression, when I stated that my potted trees placed 

 outside my house had produced fruit of " exquisite flavour and 

 colour." Now, exquisite is rather a hyperbolical adjective, 

 and I am afraid I have no defence for that word exquisite 

 such a year as this. Let me make a clean breast of it — I havo 

 actually appealed to my better half on this point. I am sure 

 that, if within the latitude of her conscience, she would bravely 

 take my part; but she has pronounced her verdict adverse to 

 my cause, and has decided in her court, from which there is 

 no appeal, that the fruit in question was not exquisite in 

 flavour, whatever it might be iu colour, and that to tell me the 

 truth she had considered it desirable to add a little sugar. 

 " Sugar ! " said I, aghast at her words, " Then what am I to 

 say by way of a rejoinder to ' S. B. ?' " " Say,"' she replied, 

 "say the naked truth, that you have fallen into a little ex- 

 aggeration, and that you would have been nearer the mark had 

 you simply stated that you had gathered ripe fruit of better 

 flavour than might have been expected considering the un- 

 favourableness of the season." It is plain to me, therefore, 

 that the use of that infelicitous superlative word " exquisite," 

 has laid me on my back, and I congratulate your correspondent 

 " S. B.," upon his discrimination in taking that epithet cum 

 prano salis, and I beg that he will not punch me while I am 

 down, and when I cry pecc 



In reply to his other broadsides, however, with whieri he 

 thinks he has raked me fore and aft, I do not intend to strike 

 my flag so easily ; so here goes shot for Bhot. 



1st. It is his palaver, not mine, about Vine roots thriving 

 among faggots and old wood. The faggots were merely placed 

 at the bottom of the pit to serve as a bush-drain, and that the 

 Vine roots do flourish as a matter of fact in the deep mould 

 placed above the drainage, must be patent to the senses of all 

 who can appreciate luxuriant Vines and splendid bunches of 

 Grapes. I enclose you one leaf to convince you that what I 

 say is not all rhodomontade.* 



2udly. I beg to reiterate the fact, for which my word must 

 suffice, that my Muscat Grapes did ripen last year in my 

 orchard-house without artificial heat. Whether they will do so 

 this exceptional season of course I cannot tell, but judging 

 from the present appearance of the bunches. I do not despair. 



3rdly. I am obliged to your correspondent for his gratuitcus 

 affirmation, that "my Vine-clad rafters produce no shade 

 which is detrimental to the Peaches beneath them." I am n< t 

 so unwise as to suppose that the shade caused by the Vine 

 leaves is unobjectionable, but I find that by spurring-in tho 

 Vines as closely as possible, and placing the potted trees 

 beneath the glass, and not just under the rafters, and somo 

 little distance apart, the harm done is not very appreciable. 



•tthly. Allow me to say, that when 1 called my trees " para- 

 gons of perfection," I alluded chiefly to their healthy appear- 



* The leaf is very large aud healthy. — Eds. 



