AMERICAN HOME GARDEN. 511 



produced by forcing where the demands of luxury render -the 

 operation profitable ; but few persons will be likely to attempt 

 to force these in a plain " home garden." 



Fruits are variously forced, either in the -green-house or in 

 houses specially appropriated to them. For strawberries, steep 

 single-pitch, narrow, temporary " strawberry houses" are often 

 made with the glass reaching nearly to the ground. From a 

 furnace sunk a sufficient depth at one end, a single line of 

 stove-pipe or small brick flue, slightly raised, runs along the 

 middle of the floor. The staging is so constructed as to cover 

 this, and bring the plants within a foot or less of the glass 

 from top to bottom, the whole looking like a covered strawberry 

 bed upon a steep slope. 



Grapes are more commonly than other fruits forced in the 

 green-house ; they are, however, more successfully forced by 

 themselves in a grapery, though strawberries in pots or other- 

 wise may be conveniently forced with them. Peaches are also 

 generally forced alone in " peach houses," and these, with some 

 other varieties, are occasionally forced together in what we have 

 called "orchard houses." For this purpose they are some- 

 times, though rarely, planted in the orchard house, as ordinary 

 dwarf or low-stemmed trees, but generally trained upon upright 

 trellises by the walls of the house, or inclined or curved ones 

 in the body of it, and sometimes are cultivated as extra dwarf 

 trees in pots, or tubs, or boxes. 



Fruits so forced require, even more than vegetables, extraor- 

 dinary and constant care in respect to temperature, moisture, 

 air, pruning, and fruiting. The preparation of the house bor- 

 ders, etc., and the general course of treatment required do not 

 differ greatly from the directions for the grapery, page 357. 



Forced vegetables which are raised from seed, etc., are start- 

 ed at once in summer heat ; but in forcing fruits we seek to 

 make a mimic spring, beginning at a low temperature, say 

 35 to 40 degrees, and gradually raising it at the rate of two 

 or three degrees a week, until, by the time the fruit has set, it 

 has gone up to 60 degrees in the day ; or at this point and on- 

 ward it may rise to 70 or 80 degrees if the sunshine carry it 

 up ; but in this case free ventilation must be given, and a hu- 



