516 Villas between London and Cheshunt. 



to support the fruit. Nothing is ever planted on the borders, either within the 

 house or without. The leaves, in consequence of their small number, and 

 the richness of the soil, attain an enormous size and succulency : but, at 

 the same time, they do not shade the house so much as where the vines are 

 trained all over a trellis under the glass ; nor do they require any thing like so 

 much care and trouble as in that mode of training. In consequence of the 

 abundance of light which is admitted within the house, we found some vines 

 trained against a back-wall trellis, and some rising from the earth in the 

 manner of standards, bearing large bunches to the very ground, even of mus- 

 cats. Grapes are gathered here throughout the year, with the exception of 

 three weeks about the end of March and beginning of April ; and they could 

 be gathered during these three weeks also, if the proprietor desired it. At 

 the present time, we found one crop removed and the leaves dropping from 

 the wood, another nearly gathered, one beginning to ripen, and one beginning 

 to swell. Pines are cut every week in the year. We consider it unnecessary 

 to speak here of the treatment either of the vines or pines at Oakhill, or to 

 say any thing in favour either of the late or present gardener ; the modes of 

 treating both pines and vines having been already given by Mr. Forsyth, in 

 different papers in our three preceding volumes. The houses are heated 

 chiefly by hot water ; though flues are still used in some of them, but with 

 the covers kept moist by drops of water, which issue from a leaden pipe con- 

 ducted over them at a foot in height, pierced at intervals with a needle so as 

 to allow one hole to each tile, and supplied from a cistern. The sashes and 

 rafters in the houses are chiefly framed in wood, but in the pits the rafters are 

 of cast iron, and the styles and rails of the sashes of wood, with the bars of 

 copper. The general width of the larger pits is 13 ft. There is a very inge- 

 nious contrivance for fastening the sashes, invented by the architect (the late 

 Mr. Shaw), which we shall figure and describe in a future Number. The 

 pines are grown in pits or frames ; the latter generally glazed with green 

 glass. In one of the frames we found the stumps of Providence pines, with 

 the leaves cut off", planted deep in pots of loam, and with a very strong bot- 

 tom heat, in order to force them to throw up suckers, which they were doing 

 abundantly. 



In the open garden we found excellent crops, particularly of the new Fle- 

 mish pears, which were trained against the walls in the horizontal manner. 

 Some of these pears do not bear so readily on the spurs of the old wood, as 

 they do on the buds and spurs of one and two-years-old wood ; and hence 

 such trees chiefly exhibit fruit in a zone between the trunk and the extremity 

 of the branches, which zone spreads wider and wider from the trunk, as the 

 tree advances in growth ; hence, unless something is done, a large and in- 

 creasing space in the centre is constantly barren. To remedy this evil, Mr. 

 Balfour, gardener to Earl Grey, adopted reverse grafting (see Vol.1, p. 71.); 

 and other gardeners have turned back the shoots, or crossed them in different 

 directions over the barren spots. Mr. Davis, the present gardener at Oakhill, 

 keeps up a succession of young branches in such a manner that the fruit is 

 equally distributed over the tree ; or at least more equally than is generally 

 to be met with. None of the fruit tree borders are cropped, and they are all 

 very shallow on a gravelly bottom. On a border on the north side of a wall 

 the pine strawberry is grown, and here it comes in three weeks later than in 

 the open garden. 



The late gardener Mr. Dowding, and his successor Mr. Davis, are well 

 known in the lists of the successful competitors for prizes for fruits, published 

 by the Horticultural and other Metropolitan Societies. There cannot be a 

 better garden than Oakhill for young men to study forcing and the cul- 

 ture of fruit trees ; and, by a little management, the pleasure-ground might 

 be rendered as superior to what it now is, as the kitchen-garden and forcing- 

 houses are to other kitchen-gardens and forcing-houses. 



