380 THE FORCING GARDEN. [APR, 



plication of excessive fire-heat ; by which many a 

 fair plant, with its infant load, has been scorched 

 and blasted, so as never more to produce flower or 

 blade *. 



Flued walls are certainly eminently useful, parti- 

 cularly in the northern parts of these kingdoms, and 

 are often necessary to the production of nectarines 

 and peaches in bad seasons. But they should not 

 be used so much to force, as to help nature, as it 

 were, in a bad climate, or in adverse seasons, in the 

 more perfect production of a crop. 



Fire heat should never be applied to naked walls 

 in the spring, so as to force the plants ; which should 

 be allowed to vegetate of their own accord, to flower, 

 and to shoot. But after vegetation has commen- 

 ced, and when the flowers, foliage, and infant fruit 

 are in a perilous state, if bad weather overtake them, 

 the help of the flues may be called in, and they 

 may be employed, in an auxiliary manner, for their 

 defence. If further aided by the application of 

 nets, or of canvas screens, as spoken of in the Fruit 

 Garden for April, their mutual help might, with 

 proper attention, be reckoned upon as the sure 

 pledge of a crop, and of well matured fruit. 



* I have witnessed this misfortune, in two different instances, 

 to such an extent in the one case, as that all the trees on a flued 

 wall 120 feet long, were at once destroyed ; and in the other, 

 all, on a wall 300 feet long, with their fruit just set, were so 

 much hurt as that the crop was totally Jost that season, and the 

 languished, and die4 the next. 



