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 201. Its length is the same as that shown in 

 illustration No. 12, but the width is more, and the 

 front is higher. The back is also 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 in three 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 riot 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 



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