J«naary 10, 1S65. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTTJRE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEK. 



variety in my soil does not mate many runners. It does 

 not run freely at any time. In my rich, loamy soU it strikes 

 deep at once, and does not make many claws, but what are 

 made go very deep, and are thick in substance." 



With the exception of the shy-running of the Frogmore 

 Pines, which ran freely enough here to enable me to make 

 three new plantations tolerably early, the above remarks 

 of Sir. Taylor's coincide with my experience, confiim my 

 statements, and justify my recommendations. They are the 

 best four Strawben-ies here, and have never failed to gratify 

 me and my visitors. Add to these the Eoyal Hautbois, 

 Bicton White Pine, and the old Eed and White Opines, and 

 you have a good lot, sufficient for all practical purposes out 

 of doors. — W. F. Eadcltffe, RusMon. 



HEATIXG A SMALL GEEEXHOUSE BY FLUES 

 UXDEE THE FLOOE. 

 I HAVE several times alluded to this plan, as one of the 

 simplest and most economical where the trouble of a brick 

 Amott" s stove inside was too much. A lean-to house ad- 

 joining a dwelling-house was thus heated, because every 

 other proposed means was too expensive. The house is 

 17 feet long, 10 feet in width, 12 feet in height at back, and 

 7 feet in height at front, 4.V feet of which is glass. One end 

 next the small furnace is solid wall, of the other end more 

 than 2} feet is glass. Xext the glass end is a flagstone 

 pavement 5 feet in width. The rest of the floor is paved 

 with nine-inch tiles. A small furnace was placed outside 

 the wall low enough for the fire-bars to be from 15 to 



15 inches below the bottom of the flue, and as it was not 

 desirable to interfere with the above flagstone, a flow flue 

 from the furnace to the flagstone^ and a return from it to 

 the small chimney, in all about 24 feet of flue, were formed. 

 The flues were made near the front, where the walking would 

 i>e, were from 41- to 5 inches wide, and, built of three bricks 

 on bed, were about Si inches deep, both inside measure. 

 Pieces of slate formed the bottom, a thin house-roofing tile 

 was laid over the top, and over that the paving-tiles were 

 tedded in a little mortar, on exactly the same level as the 

 rest of the floor, so that all means of heating are thoroughly 

 concealed, whilst there is the advantage of having in winter 

 a comfortable, dry, warm medium to walk on. No plaster 

 of any kind was used for the flues, except in laying them. 



This plan answered extremely well, but severe frosts, as 

 in 1S60 and 1S61, were just kept out, owing to the glass 

 end, and the distance of the flues from it, in consequence of 

 the flagstone. This season, from altering and enlarging the 

 dwelling-house, the tile floor of this little greenhouse was 

 so much disturbed by scaffold poles, &c., that it became 

 necessary to take up the tiles and lay them afresh. In 

 doing so, as there was still the same objection to meddle 

 with the fine polished flagstones, and as I thought it de- 

 sirable to have more heat in the house, without rendering I 

 any row of tiles very warm, I had another return-flue made \ 

 of the same size as the others, four walls of Si inches | 

 thus forming the three flues, covered as well as the whole of ] 

 the brickwork by the three nine-inch tiles close to each 

 other. Two bricks on edge would have done for the sides of 

 the flue as well as three on bed, but plenty of bricks were at 

 command, and it was desired to have all firm beneath the 

 feet. >iothin!r can promise better than this plan. 



In making the fui-nace, I had the whole of it put inside 

 the_ house, the top flre-brick of the furnace being some 



16 inches below the level of the tile-floor. My object was to 

 secure aU the heat I possibly could fr-om the smaU quantity 

 of fuel used. I was disappointed, because the floor imme- 

 diately above the furnace never became heated. Where the 

 heat rose by an inclined plane to the level of the bottom of 

 the flue, the tiles there became nice and wai-m, but behind 

 that over the furnace you could feel no heat. I thought 

 this was owing to the draught taking the heat forward, and 

 I recollect stating I would have been nearer mv purpose if 

 I had had the legs of the frimace immediately below the 

 floor. I think now I was wrong in such a surmise ; on ex- 

 amimng this part lite the rest, I found the space between 

 the furnace and floor filled chiefly by old bricks placed as 

 open as possible in pigeon-hole fashion. It struck me that 

 this confined air was the cause that kept the heat from the 



tOes. I had bricks, &.C., laid solid up to the flooring-tiles, 

 and now though this space directly over the furnace does 

 not heat so fast as the flow-flue, it becomes nice and warm, 

 and retains the heat longer than the flue. The furnace and 

 all else is the same, and want of heat in one case, and plenty 

 of heat in another, I attribute to openings and solidity re- 

 spectively. Thoroughly confined dry air becomes one of the 

 best of non-conductors. — E. Fish. 



TLNTES AJXD TI^-^E GEOWEES. 



That there is ample room for more Vines in England I 

 think no one will deny, and I consider that we might every 

 year gain a large amount of money if the resources avail- 

 able for their cultivation were made use of. In a manu- 

 facturing country like this there are thousands of steam- 

 engines connected with different kinds of works which are 

 sufficiently far from large towns, and if the waste steam 

 were conveyed into a house in which Tines were planted it 

 would afford sufficient heat to grow them, and well too. For 

 a number of years I had charge of a vinery which was heated 

 by steam from a cotton mUl, and I never had better Grapes, 

 and less trouble in looking after insects. There were two 

 double rows of pipes, and at the end of the last return I 

 had a small brass tap, something like those which are put on 

 ordinaiy half-inch gas-piping. Every spring when the Vines 

 were started I turned the tap p.irtially, and it being an open 

 one allowed the steam to gently come out into the house, 

 and if more vapour was reqirired the tap was fully opened. 

 This saved a deal of syringing and " damping down," in 

 fact the Vines rarely required it. I grew Black Ham- 

 burghs at one end of the hov^se, and White Tokays at the 

 other, and had good crops yearly. There is generally plenty 

 of old steam piping laying about works, and if it were put 

 together, and some of our modern cheap nouses erected, 

 hundreds might have Grapes without the cost of fire. In 

 houses erected on the principle I have named such pests as 

 red spider are never found if the tap is only turned in the 

 manner I have named. 



I made a tour in September principally to see Grapes, and 

 amongst other places I went to Mr. Meredith's Vineyard at 

 G^rston, near Liverpool, which, I think, all young gardeners 

 might visit with profit, and many old ones might be dis- 

 abused of some of their antique notions. Yet the prmciple 

 on which Mr. Meredith grows his fine bunches and berries 

 is old enough. His system is to some extent like that of 

 growing Gooseberries for shows — namely, few on a plant. I 

 have had quite as fine berries as Sir. Meredith, but nothing 

 like his bunches. Where he had about six bunches on a 

 Vine I had from twenty to twenty-five ; both his Vines and 

 mine are about the same age. His fine dry borders this 

 year and good new soil might be imitated with advantage 

 in many places. 



The week after visiting Garston I went to see a man who 

 has an old Vine which he allows to bear nearly all the fruit it 

 sets, merely thinning out the berries a little. I had met 

 him several times during the summer, and he invited me to 

 come and see his Vine ; " for," he said, " you never saw such 

 a sight in your life " (and I hope I may never see such an 

 one again). He advertised in our local papers, "Such a 

 sight as could not be surpassed ! Admission one penny." 

 Well, I went to see his Vine, and the reader may guess my 

 horror, or rather disgust, when I found about 150 bunches 

 of Grapes mostly as green as they were the first day they 

 set, and not a green leaf on the Vine. " I wish I had taken 

 about another hundred bunches off," said the old man. 

 " Taken," I said as soon as I saw them, " I would have taken 

 the dubbing-shears to them if they had been mine." I was 

 partly pleased, and I also pitied him ; for he had bragged 

 so hard, and told it up and down this part of the country 

 that he would have to teach us gentlemen's gardeners how 

 to grow Grapes. How his Vine wiU fai-e next year I cannot 

 say, for the wood was anything but ripe, and there were no 

 leaves . I got him out of a difficulty some years since when 

 he had overloaded his Vine, but it had plenty of good leaves 

 on then ; but next yeai- 1 fancy he wDl not advertise. 



We have a goodly number of cottage gardeners here who 

 have each a Vine, but they all mate the mistake of leaving 

 too many bunches. I have seen lots of berries no larger 



