THE PLUM HOUSE. 49 
of means and other facilities which they possess in this 
respect. Let our horticultural community then double 
their diligence and erect glass houses adapted to the 
various purposes of growing Plums, early Cherries, &c. 
The estimated cost of the above Plum house is 
about 207. Its length is the same as that shown in 
illustration No. 12, but the width is more, and the 
front is higher. The back isalso higher, with a row of 
front glass which is not movable. No back is accounted 
for in this house. The height may seem too much, 
but it gives a fine chance for the cordon Plums on the 
same principle as Peach trees are trained. This is 
really the only way that Plums can be kept bearing 
when planted in the ground. 
This house affords an abundance of head room for 
good sized pot-Plums ‘on the floor. Twenty cordon 
Plums may be put on the back, and sixty may be set 
on the floor inthree rows. The floor must be of garden 
soil mixed with some gravel of a fine kind. 
You cannot induce Plums to bear well and con- 
stantly every successive season unless they are either 
planted in gravelly soil or are lifted once a year. What 
is called ‘ starving ’ the trees is the only way of making 
them bear well every season. Hence pot-Plums will 
bear much better than when the same sorts are planted 
in the ground. Almost always and, I might say, in- 
variably, Plums cease bearing after doing so for two or 
three seasons. Then they begin to make fruitless 
wood, and you may coax them as much as you like, but 
if the soil, and especially the subsoil, is not a thoroughly 
gravelly one, and you do not lift them, they will not 
bear at all. The result of a house planted on the same 
plan as for Peaches, and treated in the same manner—- 
E 
