VARIOUS METHODS OF HEATING DESCRIBED IN DETAIL. £C] 



and under every circumstance, would be folly. But its utility 

 in winter-forcing, especially where the soil is damp and natu- 

 rally cold, will be obvious to any one of much experience in 

 these matters. The greatest success has attended the applica- 

 tion of border-heating, in England, where an enormous amount 

 of money and labor is annually expended upon the forcing of 

 grapes, and where they are produced in great perfection all the 

 year round. 



I have said that where early forcing is practised, and the soil 

 and sub-soil of a cold, retentive nature, the adoption of some 

 method similar to the above ia almost indispensable to general 

 success. I wish, however, to be rightly understood, and not to 

 mislead, and therefore advert to what every gardener knows well, 

 that good grapes are sometimes produced under the entire neg- 

 lect of all the ordinary precautionary measures resorted to by 

 good gardeners for the purpose of securing success. 



In support of this method of heating borders, I will briefly 

 advert to the opinions of some of the leading gardeners in Eng- 

 land. Mr. Fleming, gardener to the Duke of Sutherland, at 

 Trentham Hall, Avrites to the Gardener's Chronicle, four years 

 ago, to the following effect : — " Shrivelling was common here, 

 until the system of keeping up a bottom heat in the vine bor- 

 ders was introduced. Since then there has been no appearance 

 of it, except in a late house last year. In the month of xVugust 

 we had a great deal of rain, which penetrated the border, and 

 the weather was for a few da)^s very cold, and the grapes, which 

 up to that time were swelling beautifully, received a check, and 

 shortly after many of the fruit-stalks shrivelled." 



In the same paper Mr. F. makes the following statement, 

 which is the strongest evidence of the utility of the system thaf 

 has come under our notice : — "I am so convinced," says he, 

 " of the advantage of this practice, that I would prefer the 

 introduction of flues under ever}- vine border about the place, 

 did circumstances permit." This method is also employed at 

 Welbeck, with the greatest success. There the soil and sub- 

 soil are heavy, cold, and wet ; and without some such precau- 

 tion, grape-growing would be but a barren busmess. But by 

 this method of chambering the borders, and other good manage 



