WALLS, ESPALIER-RAILS, AND TRELLIS-WORK. 183 



the front side, to prevent any risk of the heat injuring the trees, which 

 thickness is taken partly off the width of the flue and partly off the back 

 part of the wall. The flues are not plastered, and in each there are four 

 places for cleaning it out, 9 in. wide and 1 ft. deep ; each of these is filled in 

 with four bricks lengthways, not laid in mortar, but only pointed on the 

 outside, so as to be readily taken out to free the flues from soot. There are 

 twelve divisions of flued wall at Erskine House ; four planted with peach 

 and nectarine trees, three with the finer pears, two with apricots, one with 

 cherries, one with figs, and one with vines. Fires are applied both in spring 

 and autumn, and the trees are covered by double or single netting at both 

 seasons, according to circumstances. See Mr. Shiells, in Card. Mag. 1841. 



47G. Conservatory Walls. Flued walls for growing half-hardy or green- 

 house shrubs require a somewhat different arrangement from those intended 

 for fruit-trees ; chiefly because in the former case it is necessary, in order to 

 preserve the plants through the autumn and winter, to keep the border from 

 perpendicular rains, at least to the width of three or four feet. For this 

 purpose a temporary roofing is made to project over the border, immediately 

 from under the fixed coping. This temporary roofing may be formed of 

 hurdles thatched with straw, or reeds fixed by hooks close below the coping 

 of the wall, and resting on a front rail, supported by posts at regular dis- 

 tances. The posts may either be poles with the bark on let into the ground, 

 or prepared from sawn timber and let into fixed stone bases. The straw on 

 the hurdles should be disposed lengthways in the direction of the slope, in 

 order to throw off the rain ; and the eaves ought to drop on a broad gutter of 

 boards or tiles, or on a firm path from which the water may be carried off 

 in drains, so as not to moisten that part of the border which is under the 

 hurdles. The border should be thoroughly drained, and an under-ground 

 four-inch wall may be built at the same distance from the wall as the bases 

 to the posts, on which wall these bases may be placed. In order to enjoy the 

 full advantage of flues to a conservatory wall, instead of thatched hurdles, 

 glass frames should be used during the autumn, so as to admit the light at 

 the same time that rain was excluded, and afterwards the glass might be 

 covered so as to retain heat ; or it might be substituted by thatched hurdles. 

 The glazed box-covers of Mr. Forsyth (462) may be used for this purpose 

 in a variety of ways which it is unnecessary to describe. 



477. A substitute for a wall of brick or stone, much used in Holland, may 

 be formed by reeds inclesed in a double trellis. One erected at Hylands, in 

 Essex, the plan of which is shown in fig. 122, and the section in fig. 123, may 



Fig 122. Plan of a reed wall. 



be described as ten feet high, and consisting of a double trellis, a, b, com- 

 posed of horizontal laths about eight inches apart ; a coping-board, c, nine 

 inches broad ; the reeds placed endwise within the trellis, d, and supported 

 about a foot from the ground to keep them from rotting ; this interval of a 

 foot being filled up with slates, placed on edge, e. The trellis rods are 

 nailed to posts, fig. 123, /, and by taking off a few of these rods on one side, 

 the reed mats can be taken out and removed. Russian mats would no doubt 

 answer very well, and last a long time, and they might be taken out with 



