372 THE FORCING GARDEN. [APR. 



the house may stand open day and night, or at least, 

 from six till six *. 



The plants must be duly attended to with water, 

 and be liberally supplied as they advance in growth. 

 The vine, when in a free growing state, requires 

 more water than is generally imagined ; and many, 

 very many gardeners half ruin their plants^ and 

 very much injure their crops of fruit, by withhold- 

 ing this element. I know some who do not give as 

 much water to a vinery in a whole season, as it 

 ought to have in a month. But what is the conse- 

 quence ? wood as large as wheat-straw, and ber- 

 ries the size of garden peas ! yet these blind men t 

 cannot see their neighbours, within a few miles of 

 them, producing shoots like walking-sticks, and 

 berries as large as plums, in soil no better than their 

 own. They have formed opinions, are inflexible, and 

 blind to conviction. Because vines grow on the 

 dry and rocky mountains of Italy, and of Madeira, 

 must they have no water in a hot-house ? do they 

 not also grow in the fertile and moist valleys of 

 France, and of Germany ? But to return : 



* This is a common phrase with gardeners, and well under- 

 stood, being the general limits of their day. 



f Some of these may probably have been pupils of the late 

 Mr John Mawer at Dairy, so much praised by Mr Loudon for 

 his excellence in forcing. This much I do know, and often have 

 seen, that both at Ducldingston, and at Dairy, Mr Mawer's grapes 

 were generally to be found as here described ; nor had he ever 

 a peach worth eating, or a pine-apple above a pound in weight. 



