FRUIT UNDER GLASS. 149 
by a system of glass copings and screens hung in front of open 
walls to keep out wet and frost. Wilton is on a chalk subsoil, 
the driest and best possible subsoil for fruit. At most places, and 
particularly in Scotland, it takes much watchful care and skilful 
working to have presentable peaches at the end of October. 
The best form of house for early forcing is a lean-to house; for 
later crops we usually find peach-houses a continuation of a 
range of lean-to vineries. Span-roof houses running north and 
south are the best, however, for mid-season and late crops of 
peaches. They afford the greatest surface of fruiting space, and 
from the necessity of training the trees upon both sides of the 
span close to the glass, the fruit is finer and larger. A form of 
training of peach-trees in lean-to houses much advocated is that 
of planting the back wall with trees and then planting trees along 
the front of the house and training them to a curved trellis 
reaching to the path. At the path the trellis is a good distance 
from the glass, and thus all the possible light is given the trees 
on the back walls. This system of having trees on the back 
wall and along the front of house should never be adopted unless 
in wide, roomy houses. A good few cases have come under my 
notice where the curved trellis had been done away with, and 
the front trees trained close to the glass, as far up as it was safe 
without shutting out the light from the trees on the back wall. 
My own observations, borne out by a great deal of the best 
peach-growing under glass in the eountry, leads me to say— 
plant your trees only at the front of the house, and train them 
close to the roof to the top of the house. “The trees will do much 
better and the fruit will be finer. 
Good and proper ventilation is of the utmost importance in 
peach-houses. For houses where you have peach-trees in flower 
early in January and February, instead of opening the roof in 
cold weather, have ventilators in the back wall that can be 
closed with wood shutters. This ventilation must not open to 
the back of the wall, but at the top of the wall with perforated 
gratings. 
The next consideration after the construction of the house is 
the making of the borders. Very cold clay subsoil, or low-lying 
places where the water does not get away, are most prejudicial 
to any kind of fruit-growing, and if peaches have to be grown on 
