180 



JOUENAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE QARDENEB. 



[ Aujust 27, 1371. 



scent), Gloire de Dijon, Prince Gamille de EoUan, Abel Grand, 

 Dupuy-Jamain, Louis Van Houtte, lioule de Neige (Uttle 

 scent). — AiiiTEUR, Aigburth, Liverpool. 



"WHAT ARE GARDEN HOUSES AND PITS? 

 With a view to elicit something like au editorial opinion on 

 a subject in which writei-a on gardening seem decidedly to 

 diiier, I ask. Is it right to call a glass structure divided into 

 compartments one house ; or ought it to be named according 

 to the number of its divisions ? I ask this question without 

 the least intention of cavilling or finding fault with those who 

 consider a number of vineries, pineries, or the like as one. My 

 object is simply to obtain something like uniformity, for al- 

 though I have been in the habit of considering every compart- 

 ment an individual house in garden phrase, I am not by any 

 means sure that I am right. I may be told that a house of 

 another kind may be divided into any number of rooms and 

 still be only one house, but this definition hardly applies to 

 glass structures devoted to horticulture ; and I presume as a 

 ipody we have the same privileges that other classes have of 

 making laws for ourselves, and consequently of deciding what 

 a certain term implies in garden vernacular. Taking two terms 

 for structures met with in every garden of note, some under- 

 standing ought to be come to as to what they respectively mean 

 — houses and pits. 



Beginning with pits, I find a great difference of opinion, 

 some calling every glass structure having a fermeutiug bed in 

 it " a pit," no matter what its size is ; others limit the term to 

 a smaller description of building. Perhaps it may appear pre- 

 sumptuous for me to say that I have been in the habit of calling 

 every structure a house which has a legitimate pathway into 

 or through it, and only such smaller enclosures as have no such 

 pathways nor modes of ingress and egress for visitors, I should 

 call pits. At the same time they must not be moveable but 

 fixed on a foundation of brick or stone, or otherwise secured 

 to their position to entitle them to the name of pits ; while 

 those of a moveable kind might be termed frames, limiting the 

 latter name to such as are moveable as a whole, but not to 

 include such structures as are prepared to be taken to pieces 

 for removal at the expiration of a tenancy. 



Coming now to the houses, assuredly it must be wrong to 

 call a range formed into a number of compartments by di- 

 visions one house, even where all the compartments are devoted 

 to the cultivation of one kind of fruit, or one description of 

 plants, as is done in the description of the noble vineries at 

 Longleat, in a recent number of The .Touexal of Horticul- 

 ture, wherein it is stated the fine span-roofed house of 216 feet 

 long by 32 feet wide, is divided into three compartments. Would 

 it not be more fair to say there were three houses? for sin larity 

 of build is not enough to entitle all three or more to ht^ called 

 one, otherwise in many places ranges of several hundrf ". feet 

 might claim the same distinction, for outwardly the line of 

 roof and general contour is the same throughout. Perhaps it 

 may be urged that when a number of houses are all devoted to 

 the cultivation of one kind of fruit ; for instance. Grapes, the 

 terming them one house is applicable or excusable, but I 

 hardly think it is. 



I would also ask some of your many correspondents to in- 

 form us where the largest vineries are to be found. If I am 

 not mistaken, some one has described those at Clovenfords 

 (Mr. W. Thomson's), as being even larger than that at Long- 

 leat, assuming it may be regarded as one, which I am un- 

 willing to do. I may be wrong as to the size of Mr. Thom- 

 son's vineries, as I have not seen them, but I have seen other 

 large houses, and as far back as 18G0 described two at Mr. 

 Meredith's, Garston, near Liverpool, one being planted with 

 black Grapes the other with white, and each house was Ml feet 

 long by 32 feet wide without any division. Subsequently, some 

 half dozen years ago or more, I found that Mr. Meredith had 

 erected two more vineries still larger than the first, being, 1 

 believe, upwards of 200 feet long and 32 feet wide ; these were 

 also without divisions. With the exception of two glass houses 

 near Maidstone, those last mentioned at Mr. Meredith's are 

 the largest houses for fruit-growing that I have ever seen ; 

 and in point of area occupied they were, perhaps, larger than 

 the Maidstone houses, one of which was 387 feet long, and the 

 other 377, both being 10 feet wide inside. One of these was 

 occupied entirely with Peaches, the other partly with Peaches 

 and some Grapes. The houses last referred to are what are 

 usually called "half-span;" a short north light being united 

 to a steep front one, gave more roof than is uuially the 



case with houses of greater width. All these houses are un- 

 divided, and consequently cannot be described otherwise than 

 as one house. Larger houses may exist, but I have not seen 

 any devoted to fruit-culture that exceed these; nurserymen, 

 however, sometimes have larger plant houses. Some of the 

 largest and in other respects fine houses of this kind that I 

 have seen, are at Messrs. Smith's nursery, Worcester, but I 

 forget the precise dimensions. They were each devoted to 

 some special purpose, as a Eose house, au orchard house, and 

 a house for hardwooded plants. 



What, then, constitutes a house as usually understood when 

 the term is applied to a glass .structure ? And If every com- 

 partment is to entitled to that name, might not the distinction 

 of " a series of houses," be applied in some of those cases 

 where the singular number only is used ? — J. Eobson. 



NOTES ON LIFTING FBUIT TREES. 



EooT-rRUNiNG fruit trees dates from a period anterior to 

 that of " lifting " them biennially or trienuially, in order to 

 continue them fruitful, but of a manageable size in a small 

 space. The founder of the system was the veteran pomologist 

 and rosarian, Mr. Elvers, of Savbridgeworth, who in his 

 "Miniature Fruit Garden," seventeenth edition, tells us in 

 the introduction that his " attention was drawn to the benefits 

 fruit trees derive from root-pruning and frequent removal, 

 about the year 1810." This will undoubtedly give us the date 

 of lifting, and, I think, of systematic root-pruning also ; for 

 though we have root-pruning alluded to before, so meagre 

 were the details that no one could tell upon what subject to 

 act, nor where to begin and end. The cutting-off a few roots 

 was all that was considered necessary to lessen the growth of 

 wood and induce fruitfulness. Our nurserymen from a remote 

 date have, no doubt, been root-pruners and lifters of fruit 

 and other trees in the course of business, quite as much to 

 keep them with good roots and saleable as for any other 

 purpose, they being unconscious of the effects on the fruit- 

 fulness of the trees. Mr. Elvers was the first to reduce 

 root-pruning to a system. Mcintosh certainly mentions " a 

 rational mode" as adopted in the gardens of Lord Mans- 

 field in Perthshii'e, " by cutting the roots of the trees nearly 

 to their stems," but gives no date, and mentions it as an 

 "adoption," not invention. The first notice I remember of 

 seeking fruitfulness by acting on the roots is by Evelyn ; but 

 the " paring" of the roots we can only conclude to have acted 

 by the disturbance at their origin tending to the emission of 

 fresh fibres, on the presence of which near the surface depends 

 fruitfulness. 



Lifting, which tends to multiply roots by preventing the 

 formation, or at least the continued extension, of the thick 

 and fibreless roots with a tendency to go down into the cold, 

 wet, unameliorated soil, appears the most rational, and, what 

 is better in practice, the most effectual mode of promoting 

 fruitfulness ; but we must not practise it without discrimi- 

 nation, for it should not be forgotten that there is diversity of 

 root as well as disposition and form of head or branch. Some 

 trees or stocks have naturally fibrous roots put forth at and 

 near the stem. Such they may have when very young, yet 

 these fibrils soon enlarge, becoming thick and long with the 

 fibres at their extremities ; hence theso are not fitting subjects 

 for lifting, as from the character of the roots the operation is 

 attended with, if only moderately distantly practised, great 

 retardation of growth and considerable loss of vitality, not 

 uufrequently proving fatal. Instances of these descriptions of 

 tree or stock are the Crab and Apple from pips, the Pear, and 

 the Cherry. Lifting if practised upon them seems not to be at- 

 tended with any good result. It unquestionably tends to pro- 

 mote their fruitfulness, but the roots would appear not to be 

 multiplied in suUicient numbers to cater for the increased 

 crop so as to permit of their attaining a full size ; the fruit 

 for some time after the operation being considerably less lu 

 size though greater in quantity than on subjects not having 

 their roots interfered with after planting. Lifting and root- 

 pruning are not, so far as I have experience, nearly so well 

 adapted for them as for the other description of trees, those 

 of a much more decided surface-rooting and fibrous character. 



Lifting, however, frequently resorted to, with trees on free 

 stocks — i.e., the Crab, Pear, and Cherry, gives a check to 

 growth greater than is experienced by trees on the " dwarf " 

 stock, the former being longer in recovering from the efi'ects of 

 removal and consequent loss of roots. The trees mostly show 

 the effect of removal by an attempt at fruitfulness ; I say 



