November 18, 1859. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



393 



UNHEATED ORCHARD HOUSES. 



; P we may judge from the season experienced in 

 the Channel Islands, it may he said that never 

 since the first introduction of orchard houses 

 has Peach culture in them experienced such 

 great difficulties. Here we had a damp and 

 gloomy spring, succeeded by a sunless sum- 

 mer, and this by an unfavourable autumn 

 remarkable for the most furious liurricane 

 ever felt here. Hail showers and low tem- 

 peratures closed-in the record of this trying 

 fruit season with a grim appropriateness. It would have 

 been indeed too much to expect anything like ordinary 

 results in orchard houses without artificial heat, whatever 

 others may have done. As, nevertheless, several corre- 

 spondents have recorded in these pages their usual suc- 

 cess, in spite of every natiu'al obstacle, I am glad to he 

 able to add my own testimony. It would conduce to the 

 interests of fruit growers if some experience were gathered 

 from these different results, and if future builders of 

 orchard houses without fire heat would study these data. 

 I, for one, am far from thinking that the present style is 

 final or exhaustive of the question. Great amounts of 

 time, labour, and money are now invested in orchard 

 houses, and the capacities of these should be more care- 

 fully gauged than is the case at present. 



To my mind the main fault lies in the unreasonable 

 expectations formed respecting the powers of production 

 of orchard houses. We hear of fabulous crops — Peaches 

 by the peck (size not stated, nor quality) — but seldom of 

 steady and uniform rates of bearing, which, after all, are as 

 much a true test of skill in the gardener as they are agree- 

 able to the employer : not to say by far the most profitable 

 in the end. Can anything be more opposed to the aim of 

 orchard-house culture than to utilise (?) these valuable 

 buildings for something of every kind that can be crowded 

 into them '.' yet many gardeners are compelled from want 

 of other space to have recourse to this expedient. Vines 

 will sometimes bear well in orchard houses, but generally 

 at the expense of the Peaches. The same thing may be 

 said of the other fruits. The presence of bedding plants 

 is fatal to the setting of the Peach crop. Potted trees 

 increase in lateral development, but the number remains 

 the same, and then two or three seasons of overcropping, 

 and the trees may as well be used as fuel. 



I do not think that there is now a general want of skill 

 in the management of orchard houses ; the present mag- 

 nificent succession of fruits was literally unknown when I 

 commenced this culture ; glass is cheap, information is 

 abundant, and a short trial will readily test either the 

 tree or the description of it in the catalogue. There is 

 no reason, therefore, why any should lay the blame of 

 failure save on his own neglecting to note accurately what 

 he sees before him, and so to judge for himself I believe 

 the great cause of ill success to be the haste which we 

 all experience to see some return for money and time 

 expended, which induces us to exact from young trees 

 too heavy crops. In many places which are much visited, 



No. 4S1.— Vol. SVII., New Series. 



efi'orts are unavoidably made to secure a fair show at the 

 expense of the trees' future welfare, and blank spaces gene- 

 rally attract visitors more than real excellence of culture, 

 and invite the easy but vexatious criticism of the igno- 

 rant. Let the gardener, especially in the orchard house, 

 harden his heart against either his friend's sympathy or 

 his sugcrestions when he places unreasonable standards 

 of perfection before him. Let him work to attain a steady 

 rate of production, neither exhaustive nor yet below some 

 fair rate of crop. Let him, above all, take the criticisms of 

 visitors at their true merit. This sounds like hard doctrine, 

 hut it is the result of an experience of many such matters. 



And what grounds, then, will my friends say, have I 

 now for still recommending this careful noting of facts 

 for self-guidance ; this practice of steady, in preference 

 to spasmodic, production ; and this careful adaptation of 

 the structure of an orchard house and its contents to 

 ranges of climate and its powers of bearing '? I will pro- 

 ceed to mention them. 



It is too often supposed that the fruit-growing powers 

 of the Channel Islands are so great that little skill is 

 needed to produce almost anything. This has mainly 

 arisen from the reputation of our noble Chaumontel Pears, 

 which happen exactly to suit our cloudy summers and 

 equable night temperature : but for most other fruits the 

 south of England is our equal, and in almost every garden 

 production France and Belgium are naturally superior. 

 Apricots here will rarely succeed on the open wall ; open- 

 air Grapes are inferior to those of England. The pre- 

 valence of strong sea breezes laden with salt is opposed 

 to success. The hurricane of the 12th of September last, 

 which exceeded a hundred miles an hour in speed, de- 

 stoyed everv leaf which was exposed to it, and shook down 

 most of the crops. Last vear, also, a gale occurred m the 

 middle of August. Even "in the case of orchard houses, 

 the spring was disastrous, gloomy, and cold, while the 

 summer was nearly sunless ; in the month of October we 

 had smart hail showers, and have now violent wind. All 

 these matters are troublesome in the extreme for orchard 

 houses, and render it necessary to exercise continual watch- 

 fulness in ventilation and watering. The excellent crop 

 which I had cannot, therefore, be fairly placed to the 

 credit of nearly spontaneous production as being usually 

 common in the Channel Islands. As early as the 12th 

 of June (a date never before reached here), Early Beatrice 

 Peach ripened ; and, as I write, two fine baskets of late 

 Peaches (the only ones there), have just been exhibited at 

 the .lersey Horticultural Show. This makes five months' 

 succession of Peaches and Nectarines— not a bad test of 

 the value of unheated orchard houses. It was, indeed, 

 strange to see these trees in full bloom under a Febru- 

 ary's cold sky, and ripening well under hail and storm 

 in November — ten months I 



Not only was there this long period of bearing, but the 

 whole of the fruit was of full size, and of very good colour. 

 Early Pavers and Exquisite, two of the finest Peaches 

 ever seen in England, were especially fine. The first, 

 ripening on the 1st of .lulv. reached to H.V inches round, 

 j perfect, delicious— as the Rev. W. Kingsley. an exceUent 



No. HOD.- Vol. XLII., Old Seejeb. 



