and Forcing-Department at Syon. 509 



and retaining them about a month in 

 that position, every bud, from the lower 

 part of the shoot to the summit, 

 pushed out leaves and showed fruit. 

 As soon as this was effected, the shoots 

 were restored to their straight position ; 

 most of them showed two or three 

 bunches on every young shoot, and ^^loo 



some four or five bunches ; indeed, such was the abundance 

 of the blossom, that some shoots showed 96 bunches. In 

 the three houses, one of 40 ft. and two of 32 ft. long, and 

 about 19 ft. wide, 1140 bunches were cut off in a green state 

 in order not to weaken the plants. In this, the second year 

 of their growth, between 300 and 400 bunches were brought 

 to perfection and sent to Phoenix Park ; and be it remarked 

 that the first bunches were cut on the 1 9th of April, at a 

 time when they were worth in London a guinea and a half 

 per lb. The berries of some of the muscats measured 3 J inches 

 in circumference. The whole crop was cleared off by the end 

 of June : the roof-sashes have since that time been removed, 

 and the plants are now fully exposed to the weather, with their 

 wood fully ripe, and the leaves dropping off. 



With respect to the six low houses for fruiting pines, forc- 

 ing a variety of articles, and growing cucumbers, we can 

 state from our own observation, and we know it to be gene- 

 rally acknowledged by the profession about London, that no- 

 thing ever surpassed the excellence of their produce. Last 

 year, the family being in England, strawberries in abundance, 

 kidneybeans, and forced flowers of extraordinary luxuriance 

 were produced in April, May, and June, and pine-apples of 

 as large a size as had ever been seen at so early a period of 

 the season. Cucumbers, some of them 2 ft. long, were ga- 

 thered in the early part of the spring of the present year ; and 

 ripe grapes from plants in pots were cut on the 15th of 

 February. 



It may now be necessary to take some notice of the mate- 

 rials of which these forcing-houses, and also the range of pits 

 behind them, are constructed. The pits are, for the greater 

 part, of timber, with brick walls and smoke-flues. The 

 roofs, ends, divisions, and trellises of the forcing-range, with 

 the exception of three of the pits at the east end, are of 

 metal ; the bars of the sashes being of copper, and their styles 

 and rails and the rafters and every thing else of cast and 

 wrought iron. The floor of the path in the central range is 

 also of cast-iron grating, supported on brick piers, which has 

 the advantage over flag-stones of admitting the sun and air to 



