Back Sheds, Vineries, Fineries. 27 



lines on the subject, as far as we have gone. There is a shed 

 the whole length of the back of the palm-house, where you ob- 

 served a store of large flower-pots, and green string stretched 

 out going through the process of painting, &c. At the back of 

 the heath-house there is a mushroom bed ; likewise at the back 

 of the New Holland house. I told you that I would some day 

 tell you of a sure and easy method of growing mushrooms; but 

 I must delay it until I have made a little more progress with 

 the houses. You likewise saw a store-room, where baskets, 

 hampers, flower-pots, wire, trellis, new tools of different kinds 

 not yet in use, and many other little things are kept. You 

 next saw another little store-room, where I keep charcoal dust, 

 bone dust, and soot. You next saw another long open shed at 

 the back of the two vineries, with a loft over to keep flower-pots 

 in ; the bottom part filled with old sugar hogsheads, packing 

 tubs, and cement casks, with stores of loam of different sorts, 

 heath-mould, rotten dung, leaf-mould, cow-dung, sheep-dung, 

 different kinds of sand, &c. ; and at the open side you observed 

 a quantity of rough shelves I had fixed for drying and 

 sweetening different soils on in the winter; as it faces the north 

 it answers two purposes, first by sweetening the soil, then by 

 keeping the snow from blowing all over the shed. 



Vineries are rather scarce in Bicton gardens. Considering 

 what noble gardens they are, you would expect to see vineries 

 from which grapes could be had every day in the year. If there 

 is one plant in the world that I am more fond of than another, 

 it is the beautiful vine, for the kinder you treat it, the more it 

 will do for you. You saw the grapes and tasted them, there- 

 fore I leave you to say what you thought of them. I have a 

 great deal to say some day on the culture of the vine, if it pleases 

 God to spare me. I had once the care of a house of grapes for 

 a large grape-grower in the neighbourhood of London, who 

 had many other large houses equally good. I heard a man 

 offer my master 175 guineas for the crop in this house, and 

 would cut them himself within a given time; but my master 

 wanted 200 guineas, took them to market himself, and made 

 more than 240 guineas. Now the house they grew in was not 

 worth more than 70/. 



Pineries. — You saw and made some notes on the large pine- 

 pit, nearly the length of the orange-house, likewise on the half- 

 hardy pit the same length ; you also seemed to observe the 

 pines and pine plants. I hope you will not flatter anything 

 under my charge, but point out all the faults you saw ; for I 

 am perfectly satisfied that nothing is perfect, and mean to perse- 

 vere and endeavour to improve every thing under my care. If 

 you say that you saw queen pines here weighing more than 

 2^ or 3 lb., people will not believe you, when they recollect the 



