4S0 



JOURNAL OF HOETICTLTUEE AND COTTAGE GABDENER. 



[ Jaat II, 13«<. 



vfaen they were relighted and continued day and night until the 

 fruit WB8 ripe. The Apricots were line, and came in a fortnight 

 or three weeks earlier than those on tho unhealed wall. I was 

 only sorrj- that I had not treated the Peaches in the same 

 way, and hod them a fortnight or three weeks earlier than they 

 were likely to be ripe. In the following year, however, I was 

 io he gratified, for on that part of the wall to be heated were 

 the two Peach trees, and I was eager to try the effect of heat 

 on them. It was a rule to heat one half of the Apricot wall 

 one year, and the other half in the next, and this year it came 

 to the turn of the wall having tho two Peach trees to be heated. 

 This was in 1852 ; tho nets were put on the Apricots in that 

 year on the 1st of March, and on the Peaches on the 19th of 

 March, and the firea were lighted when the days and nights 

 were cold. The crop was again good, the fruit ripe on the 

 side next the wall equally with that next tho sun, and, much 

 to my sali.'factiou, the two Ptaoh trees bore a good crop and 

 fully a fortnif^ht earlier than on the imheated wall. One of 

 ih£so trees was a Royal (leorge, and en it I first saw downy 

 and smooth-skinned fruit — that is. Peaches and Nectarines on 

 the same tree. Why not have heated the half of the Peach 

 wall, and have had Peaches earlier and thus prolonged their 

 season ? 



The garden changed managers, the new manager did heat 

 the Peach wall. (The trees had been eleven years planted, 

 and with the riders or standards covered the wall.; The result 

 •was a fair crop, and some days earUcr than on the unhealed 

 wnll, but the trees were smothered with aphis and eaten up 

 by red spider, and there was no 

 fruit in the following year. In 

 that year the other half of the 

 wall was heated, and fruit was 

 ripened some days earlier, but 

 tbey were few. The heating of 

 the wall was persisted in, and 

 though I did not see the death 

 of the trees, I saw fresh trees 

 had been planted in their place 



in 1856. The Apricots still covered the wall, and the south 

 wall (not flued), was still occupied by the original Peach trees 

 producing a heavy crop of fruit. 



Since that time, as well as before it, I have examined many 

 fined walls, but have not seen any of them in use ; and though 

 I have a heated wall at present, I h.-ive not the courage to have 

 a fire put in the furnaces, for I have tried a tire on cold frosty 

 nights, and the only benefit I could ever perceive was that the 

 fruit set with greater certainty ; but whatever good the heating 

 might effect was more than counterbalanced by the plague of 

 insects that followed, and so sucked out the juices of the young 

 shoots that the fruit fell before stoning. 



For Peaches I am certain that no flued wall is necessary to 

 secure a crop on south aspects on this side of the border, for 

 they produce good crops without flued walls if due care is 

 taken to retard the blossom, and to protect it and the young 

 fmit up to the third week in May from wet and cold, by a 

 covering of canvas or fine-meshed netting. Except in elevated 

 and cold localities Peaches can be ripened in our climate with- 

 ont the aid of flued walls or glass coverings, and the former 

 are prejudicial rather than conducive to certainty of crop and 

 improved quality of fruit. Tho Peach, I am certain, does not 

 require any artificial roasting and starving to induce it to set 

 its fruit ; but, on the contrary, extremes of heat and cold 

 daring the setting and swelling of the fruit are injurious. 

 -■ 'The effects of a heated wall appear to be very different as 

 tegards tho Apricot ; and as the radiation of heat from the 

 bricks prevents the deposition of moisture on the blossoms, I 

 think a hot wall does materially aid in the preservation of 

 the future crop, besides saving from frost the setting and 

 Swelling young fruit, more tender than that of the Peach tree. 

 The Apricot suffers but Uttle from frost so long as the blos- 

 soms remain diy, but a very few degrees of frost will bring 

 down the fruit in a few days afterwards like a shower of hail. 

 If there is a fi-uit tree that flued walls can in the least assist 

 in producing a crop, I think it is the Apricot, for it is not in- 

 juriously affected by a dry atmosphere, nor by one warmer in 

 some parts than others, only it must have air. In a close 

 moist atmosphere it will not frait, hence the failures with the 

 A))ricot under glass, but having grown it on heated walls 

 satisfactorily I can speak favourably of them. I have at- 

 tempted to cultivate Apricots under glass and failed. I h.ivc 

 Been others try to do so and they have Jailed likewise, and yet 



we have it for certain that Messrs. Bivers and Pearson always 

 obtain pood crops.* 



The julluwing tjection is that of a flued or hot wall, such as 

 I have seen covered with Vines pro- 

 ducing Ci rapes in September, good 

 as to size, colour, and flavour ; and 

 trees bearing Peaches, Nectarines, 

 and .\pricots with certainty, and no 

 injurious effects were perceptible on 

 the trees. 



Fig. 1 shows a flued or hot wall 

 13 feet in height above the ground 

 line a, and 15 feet Irom the founda- 

 tion. The wall is not built perpen- 

 dicularly but slopes inwards equally 

 on both sides, being 31} inches 

 wide at the base, or 27 inches at 

 the ground level and 18 inches wide 

 at the top. It is built with li -inch 

 earities extending from tho top of 

 tho lowest flue to the coping of the 

 wall ; and these cavities, or narrow 

 chambers, become heated by the 

 upper part of the flues, and afford 

 heat to the wall between the flues. 

 Tbey are shown at 6. The wall is 

 built so that every other course of 

 bricks crosses these chambers in 



k 



Kg. 1. 



the manner of headers, every alternate brick being left ont. 

 The wall is equal to two bricks and a half thick. The 

 chambers and flues render less bricks necessary. Its cost per 

 superficial yard, including materials and labour, is 10s. Pre- 

 suming that we had an acre to enclose in the form of a pa- 

 rallelogiam, 2721 feet from east to west, and 160 feet from 

 north to south, the cost of a fined wall of this kind for the 

 northern boundary (there should be slips beyond the walls), 

 will be £225. The coping projects over the wall 3 inches on 

 each side, and there is no drip from it, as there is a groove in 

 the centre of tlie coping at c. The joints are cemented, and 

 there are gutters or grooves from the centre of the coping to 

 the back (north side), at every 21 feet, the grooves in the coping 

 being cut deeper at the " run off" to give the necessary fall. 

 The wall is finrnished with wires (one-eighth inch), 44 inches 

 apart, as shown at d, the wires being passed through holes in 

 holdfasts driven into the wall 2 inches, and projecting 1 inch. 

 The wires when strained have a neat appearance ; and tho 

 trees do equally well, if not better, trained in this way than 

 when fastened close to the wall with shreds and nails, and the 

 wall is no worse. Some walls that have been wired in this 

 manner thirty-eight years have as good a face as when first 

 erected, for the mortar has not been knocked and hammered 

 out by the continual driving in and drawing out of noils. 



In front of the wall, e is intended to show a pole 2 inches 

 square, placed IH inches from the wall at bottom, and let into 

 the ground, that part being charred and dipped in coal tar 

 whilst hot. The upper end of the pole rests against the coping, 

 and under an inch-deal board 11 inches wide, fixed to the coping 

 by means of iron plates let into the coping and leaded in. This 

 board, /. serves to exclude rain and to keep the canvas dry 

 when rolled up, it being fixed to a roller, and drawn up or down 

 by a cord and puUey. <7 is the border, h drainage, and i con- 

 crete ; ft is a drain. The netting used to protect the trees 

 from frost is of wool, and has a quarter-of-an-inch mesh. 



t'in. 2 is a similar wall, only part of the flues are pigeon- 

 holed instead of chambered, which gives heat equally to tho 

 wall, and avoids excessive heat in some parts and coldness 

 in others. The spaces, a. are flues, and the pigeon-holes are 

 represented by the white spaces over them. This will be best 



* lu an orcbarii-huusc, of course nnhoatcd, we never failed to rip^ 

 Moorpark Apricots gro^Yii in pots.— Eds. 



