UTENSILS USED IN HORTICULTURE. 107 



rooms, early potatoes, forced kidney-beans, and the more choice fruits. 

 The bushel basket is generally made of peeled wands, but the others 

 of split willow wood, or split deal. Fig. 74 represents a punnet 

 manufactured in the latter manner, -r,. - . 



the construction of which will be 

 understood by any person who 

 understands the English mode of 

 basket-making. 



Baskets for growing plants were 

 a long time in use in the open 

 garden, being plunged in spring, 

 and taken up in the following 

 autumn ; the object being to take 

 up fruit-trees or other tender shrubs 



with a ball, and with most of the fibres. At present baskets for 

 growing plants are chiefly used in orchid-houses, the basket being 

 filled with moss ; but as they are found to be of very short duration, 

 wire baskets are substituted, earthenware pots with perforated sides, 

 or a sort of open box formed of short rods laid over one another at 

 the angles, somewhat in the manner of a log-house. 



Portable glass utensils for plants are chiefly of two kinds : the bell- 

 glass, fig. 75, and the hand-glass, fig. 76. Another kind of hand-glass 



-P. .. is now in use in Messrs. Veitch's ,. fl 



1 lig. 75. _. . ,._- , rig. 76. 



nursery, at Coombe Wood one 



quite conical, and with a small 

 piece of zinc forming one of its 

 upperpanes; inthis there is ahole 

 which enables the workmen to 

 handle them conveniently. This 

 answers its purpose perfectly. Cast-iron hand-glass 



-- 3 Bell-glasses vary in dimensions parts, the 



Bell- Glasses /_ J of and sides. 



from the large green bell-glass, 



eighteen inches in diameter and twenty inches in height, used in the 

 open garden for protecting cauliflowers in winter and cucumbers in 

 summer, to the small crystal bell, three inches in diameter and two 

 inches high, for covering newly-planted cuttings. Whenever the pro- 

 pagation of tender plants by cuttings, or by the greffe etouffe, is 

 attempted, bell-glasses are essential. The French use large bell- 

 glasses or cloches most extensively in the open ground. They are 

 used by the thousand in most French gardens, and are capable of 

 effecting great improvements in our kitchen gardens, while they are 

 of much use indoors. The following description and figures are from 

 the 4 Parks, Promenades, and Gardens of Paris.' 



" The Cloche. This is simply a large and cheap bell-glass, which is 

 used in every French garden that I have seen. It is the cloche which 

 enables the French market-gardeners to excel all others in the pro- 

 duction of winter and spring salads. Acres of them may be seen 

 round Paris, and private places have them in proportion to their 

 extent from the small garden of the amateur with a few dozen or 



