158 THE FORCING GARDEN. 



is easy enough to do by keeping the sets in a warm 

 cellar or house a month or two before the planting 

 time comes, which should be by Christmas. 



This house should be furnished with a hot- water 

 apparatus ; one flow-and-return pipe is all that is re- 

 quired, and will be found enough to force Potatoes. 

 Now if the glass comes down to the ground within one 

 foot, so much the better ; and if the wall is ten feet 

 high at the back, the glass may reach up to the top 

 with advantage. This will then be at the angle indi- 

 cated in the above plan. This pitch of the angle will 

 give a twelve-feet rafter, which will be a moderate 

 length for Grape vines, and these would be even 

 better than Peaches on the wall, because I know that 

 it is not good to disturb the border much on which 

 Peaches are growing ; and the manuring and cultiva- 

 tion and top-cropping of the border will not at all 

 injure the vines, but, on the contrary, do them good. 

 As a permanent crop the vines will pay well, for as 

 some fire heat must be kept on for the Potatoes, they 

 will get forward some weeks before vineries with no 

 fire heat. One vine will carry three rods each for 

 spurring. 



Suppose, then, the whole border eight feet wide by 

 any length say two hundred feet is planted with 

 Potatoes all over as suggested, i.e. nine inches apart, 

 planting them six inches deep, then no earthing up 

 will be required, so long as the ground is made very 

 fine at the time of planting, and the sets are well 

 covered with fine old leaf-mould. I do not mean that 

 which is perfectly decomposed, but leaf-mould from 

 leaves laid up one year, which will then be sufficiently 

 decayed for the purpose, and which contains nutriment 



