232 Flo'wers and Fruit. 



pipes into every corner of the grapery, like life blood through 

 the human figure, giving out an equal and a dewy kind of 

 warmth, nourishing leaf and fruit, and producing clusters such 

 as were crushed of old to make that wine called Falernian. 

 Even the hot-house of my early days was but a better kind of 

 heated wall. A flue, constructed of brick and covered with 

 stone, went round the pit, and, uniting itself to the wall against 

 which the glass sloped, took a horizontal turn or two, and then, 

 ascending, terminated in a chimney. To produce the moisture 

 which vegetation loves, water was thrown on the flagstones 

 which covered the flues, and the steam, no doubt, did its duty ; 

 but then the hot stones were often broken by the dash of cold 

 water, and a cloud of smoke escaping, not always unaccom- 

 panied by flame, threatened to destroy all the hopes of the 

 season. 



It seems to me that the principle of forcing will yet be carried 

 farther, though nothing can be more safe or satisfactory, nay, 

 beautiful, than the plan of heating hot-houses and conservatories 

 pursued by Mr. Kewley or Mr. Samuel Walker, in which hot 

 water is made to do the duty of tropical rain and sunshine, and 

 with far more certainty ; yet we may hope for great improve- 

 ments in a discovery still in its infancy. This is one of the 

 changes which we of the old school must acknowledge is for the 

 better : indeed, the effect produced would, in other days, have 

 ranked as the work of enchantment ; and I can well imagine 

 how wide the gardener of my boyish days would have opened 

 his eyes, had he seen Mr. Walker's hot-water pipes forcing vines 

 into leaf, pines into fruit, and flowers into blossom. Nor is this, 

 though safe, sure, and regular, an expensive afi^air : the usual 

 price for laying down 4-in. cast-iron pipes, and putting them 

 into working order is seven shillings a yard, and we believe they 

 may be done for six. It is needless to say how superior this is 

 to the early system of heating. Can you or any of your cor- 

 respondents tell me whether the Romans, who made wine from 

 British grapes, raised them by heat, or cultivated them on ter- 

 races with a southern aspect? The climate must either be 

 changed for the worse, like our golden pippins, or the soldiers 

 of the eternal city must have been fellows of a curious taste and 

 vigorous swallow, if the grapes of the open air of those days 

 resembled the grapes of the open air now. I hope this hasty 

 letter may provoke some other correspondent, experienced in 

 pippins and pears and peaches, to give you the benefit of his 

 recollections. It is not unpleasing, and I am sure it is in- 

 structive, to compare the ways of other years with the doings of 

 our own. 



