264 Horticultural Implements y Appliances, etc. 



FIG. 81. 



deal of trouble with temporary copings, and find them of the greatest 

 use in getting good and regular crops, for the frosts are severe in the 

 northern parts and all around Paris, in fact nearly all the region north 



of the river Loire, the most 

 important region of France. 

 The best temporary coping 

 I have ever seen used was 

 narrow lengths of tarpaulin 

 nailed on cheap frames from 

 six feet to eight feet- long, 

 and about eighteen inches 

 wide. The use of such on 

 walls devoted to the culture 

 of choice pears, peaches, &c., 

 would result in a marked im- 

 provement. The temporary 

 coping has a great advantage 



in being removable, so that the trees may get the full benefit of the 

 summer rains when all danger is past, and not suffer from want of 

 light near the top of the wall, as they would if such a wide protect- 

 ing coping were permanent. I believe that such a coping would 

 be much more effective than any of the netting and canvas protec- 

 tions now in use in English gardens. 



MATS FOR COVERING PITS, FRAMES, &c. In our cold and 

 variable climate, the winter covering for many minor glass struc- 

 tures is of the greatest importance. It is a thing that at pre- 

 sent we do in a very expensive and by no means satisfactory 

 way. The French mode of doing it is much cheaper, neater, and 

 more effective ; and in passing through their market gardens and 

 forcing-grounds in winter, it is one of the first if not the chief thing 

 that seems to the English horticulturist as worthy of imitation. The 

 covering used consists of neat straw mats about an inch thick, the 

 sides as clean and neat as if cut in a machine, the mat knit together 

 by twine, and its texture such that it may be rolled up neatly and 



