72 MY GARDEN. 



by the use of paraffin lights placed under a zinc trough filled with 

 water. This plan can only be commended to keep out frost if the 

 glass be covered at the same time with mats. 



The orchard-house is a luxury where there are no walls. It has 

 never failed to give me a fair crop of fruit but once, in 1869, when I 

 had but small produce. In that year orchard-houses failed throughout 

 England : but two trees, out of doors, gave me as large a proportionate 

 crop as the orchard-house. Orchard-houses have the drawback of 

 requiring much labour in watering and syringing the trees, and 

 judgment in the extent to which ventilation and water should be 

 administered to secure the due flavour of the fruit. Where there are 

 walls, more fruit can be secured for the same labour ; and the flavour 

 of the fruit and its capability of carriage are, on the average, better 

 secured on outside walls than in the interior of the orchard-house. 



There is a glass-house in the Horticultural Society's grounds, where a 

 railroad is laid from the house to the open air ; the side of the house 

 is contrived so as to open, and the orchard-house trees are supported on 

 a railroad truck, so that the whole can be wheeled into the open air 

 or back into the house in a few minutes. 



Passing from the cold houses or glass sheds, my Fernery (fig. 85) 

 next demands description. It is about 80 feet long, and has about sixty 



FIG. 85. Fernery. 



rafters. The glass faces the north, and the whole house being well 

 sunk in the ground, has very much the appearance of a long frame. 

 The door (fig. 86) is at the back of the house, on its southern aspect, 

 so that the northern side presents an uninterrupted surface of glass, 

 through which the light of heaven from a clear northern sky penetrates. 



