The Cultivation of Fruit under Glass.! 
BY 
JAMES WHYTOCK, 
GARDENER TO His GRACE THE DUKE OF BuccLeucuH, DALKEITH. 
THE GRAPE. 
IN complying with the request of the Regius Keeper to give two 
or three lectures on the cultivation of fruit under glass, I think it 
right to treat of the vine first, because it is by far the most 
extensively grown fruit under glass. The course of instruction of 
which these lectures form a part is, I understand, for the benefit 
of young men of the staff of the Royal Botanic Garden, most of 
them beginners. I shall therefore go more into elementary 
details of my subject than I would do were I speaking to those 
who are more experienced. 
What I state to-night is what I have seen and experienced, 
but I don’t think I will state anything new to you. The truth 
is the most of all our experiences are built upon the experiences 
of those who have gone before us. We either try to improve 
upon what has been practised successfully or, what is equally 
important, we avoid practices we have seen to be failures. 
There is no crop grown in this country that has undergone 
such a change in its cultivation as has the grape-vine during the 
past forty years. It is now nearly half a century since the 
pioneers of the last generation of gardeners began to adopt what 
we now know to be reasonable and sensible means to grow good 
grapes. The practice of putting very heavy coverings of solid 
| Three lectures delivered in the Lecture Hall of the Royal Botanic Garden in 
June, 1901, as part of the Course of Instruction provided for members of the staff. 
[Notes, R.B.G., Edin., No. IV., r90r.] 
