142 FRUIT CULTURE UNDER GLASS. 



known peach -blossom destroyed in narrow lean-to 

 peach-houses by severe spring frosts. And with the 

 means of keeping frost out, the floor of the house is 

 available for flower-garden plants. 



In all peach -houses ventilation should be amply 

 provided for. In the case of very early forcing, when 

 the crop is all gathered before the 1st of June, the 

 top and bottom ventilation should be very abundant ; 

 indeed it is a good plan to have the roof constructed 

 so that the lights can be partly, if not wholly, removed 

 for two or three months in the heat of summer. At 

 all events, the ventilation should be amply sufficient 

 to keep the house as cool as possible. The whole of 

 the side lights of span-roofed houses should open, and 

 the top ventilation be made so as to open to a con- 

 siderable extent. In recommending the covering of 

 existing peach-walls with glass, I am fully convinced 

 that this will always be found satisfactory, inasmuch 

 as without doing anything else to the peach-trees, if 

 in other respects they are in moderate condition, the 

 mere covering of them with glass will not only insure 

 crops of peaches every year, but all blistering of the 

 foliage, and most of the other ills which beset the 

 peach in the greater number of the gardens of this 

 country, will be got rid of. At Archerfield I had a 

 peach-wall covered on which the trees formerly did 

 very little good, and after being covered with a lean- 

 to house, they speedily became healthy and vigorous, 

 annually bearing great quantities of fine fruit. The 

 same applies to the peach-wall at Dalkeith, and other 

 places that could be named. 



