372 THE FORCING GARDEJv. [aPR, 



case, the liouse may stand open day and night, or 

 at least, fj^cmi sia: till sir. * 



The plants mnst be duly attended to with water, 

 and be liberally supplied as they advance in growth. 

 The vine, when in a free growing state, requires 

 more water than is generally imagined ; and many, 

 very many gardeners, half ruin their plants, and 

 very much injure their crops of fruit, by withhold- 

 ing this element. I know some who do not give as 

 much water to a vinery in a whole season, as it 

 ought to have in a month. But what is the conss- 

 quence ? wood as large as wheat-straw, and ber- 

 ries the size of garden peas ! yet these blind men t 

 cannot see their neighbours, within a few miles of 

 them, producing shoots like walking-sticks, and ber- 

 ries as large as plums, in soil no better than their 

 own. They have formed opinions, are inflexible, and 

 blind to conviction. Because vines grow on the dry 

 and rocky mountains of Italy, and of Madeira, must 

 they have no water in a hot-house ? do they not also 

 grow in the fertile and moist valleys of France, and 

 of Germany ? But to return. 



* This is a common phrase with gardeners, and well under- 

 stood, being the general limits of their day. 



j- Some of these may probably have been pupils of the late Mr 

 John Masver at Dairy, so much praised by Mr Loudon for his ex- 

 cellence in forcing. This much I do know, and often have seen, 

 that both at Duddingston, and at Dah-y, Mr Mawer's grapes were 

 generally to be fi)und as here described ; nor had he ever a peach 

 worth eating, or a pine-apple above a pound in weight. 



