282 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



I again raise the temperature to from 60° to 65°, night, and from 

 65° to 70°, day. When starting my house I give the border a 

 thorough soaking with water heated to 85°, repeating the opera- 

 tion once about two weeks before the vines are in bloom, at which 

 time I keep the atmosphere in the house moderately dry, ventilat- 

 ing freely on bright days and only damping the floor about mid- 

 day. This treatment is followed until the fruit is set, when I put 

 on a top-dressing of barnyard manure and give the border a 

 thorough watering with tepid water, repeating as often as is re- 

 quired. Just when the grapes commence to take their second 

 swell, I give a copious watering with liquid manure and another 

 similar dose just before the grapes begin coloring. After this I 

 use only clear water, and when the grapes are ripe I keep the 

 border as dry as possible without allowing the vines to suffer. My 

 grapery is 50X20 ft. 



The extent of this estate is one hundred acres ; we have about 

 six acres of lawn and flower garden, and about four acres of vege- 

 table garden. We grow almost everythiug in the vegetable line. 

 Besides the grapery we have a Palm house 50x20; Rose house 

 50X18; one house for general greenhouse flowering plants, 50 X 

 18, and a house for Carnations and Violets 100X10. The green- 

 houses are heated by hot water (overhead system), using two 

 Foster boilers connected so that we can use either separately or in 

 conjunction with each other. 



W. D. Hinds's Peach Okchakd. 



For the best Fruit Garden an application was received from Mr. 

 W. D. Hinds of Townsend to examine his orchard of Crosby 

 Peaches. Not since 1881 have your Committee had an oppor- 

 tunity to inspect a Peach orchard ; at that time we visited those of 

 John B. Moore and Marshall Miles of Concord, and Thomas C. 

 Thurlow of West Newbury. Those who were there remember 

 what success these cultivators had achieved. Since then we began 

 to iliink that the days of Peach cultivation in Massachusetts had 

 ended, ])iit this visit to Mr. Hinds quickly dispelled all such 

 thoughts. We have endeavored to obtain all the good points we 

 could on peach culture, and we venture a few extracts in regard 

 to the subject. The revised edition of A. J. Downing's "Fruits 

 and Fruit Trees of America," 1869, says, " Thousands of acres 

 are devoted to this crop for the supply of the markets of our 



