JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ May 26, 1863. 



Bible. The match should be between skilled gardener and skilled 

 gardener, between planted-out treeB in a hothouse and planted- 

 out trees in a cold one, between pot trees in the one and pot 

 trees in the other. It should be borne in mind that the orchard- 

 house faction numbers in its ranks but few skilled gardeners, 

 while the other side counts many. Tet Messrs. Rivers and 

 Pearson offer to show their planted- out trees and pot trees 

 against like trees in a hothouse ; but nowhere have they offered 

 to show trees in pots against trees planted out. 



It is to be observed, that when an orchard-house cultivator 

 boasts of fruit grown through pots, his evidence is met by the 

 reply, "You cannot call that pot-culture;" as if culture in 

 potB were part of the orchard-house system, which it is not. 

 There are only two questions to be answered. First, Are cold 

 houses properly used for fruit-culture, worthy of a place in our 

 gardens ? Second, Which is the proper mode of culture in them 

 — planting out, growing through pots, or growing in pots ? 



Answers to these questions may do us some good, which a 

 wordy war as to whether skilled gardeners with planted-out 

 trees can grow better and more fruit than amateurs with trees 

 in pots is not likely to do. — G. H. 



SMALL VINERY HEATED BY DUNG. 



I PUEPOSB carrying out a plan I read of many years ago, I be- 

 lieve in London, of erecting a small house heated by a dung-pit; 

 but I have never seen one, and do not find any notice of it in the 

 modern books I have had an opportunity ot reading, and I am 

 apprehensive that some practical difficulty may have developed 

 itself, and prevented the suggestion from being usefully carried 

 out. You can tell me in a line whether this be so. I propose to 

 have a house 10 feet by 7 inside, with 3 feet along the front oc- 

 cupied by a chamber for dung 3 feet high ; the dung to be filled 

 in from the outside, and shut in closely by well-fitted doors, and 

 the chamber formed of solid wall, but open at the top. Over 

 this chamber some durable rails will sustain a bed of brushwood, 

 or some such materials, upon which a bed of mould is to be 

 placed, so that bottom heat will be applied to that bed of mould, 

 and no other egress for the heat of the dung than into that bed 

 will exist. The advantages I look for are — the rotting my 

 dung out of sight, using the heat entirely, and the facility of 

 putting in and out of sight all rotting materials, and avoiding loss 

 from evaporation, and I suppose the dung may be put in fresh 

 from the stable ; but as to that I am not sure, nor do I quite 

 know what depth of mould I should have. Upon that bed I 

 should hope to raise anything wanted for transplanting, besides 

 Cucumbers trained to the glass in front above the bed, and per- 

 haps Melons. 



This small house would be put against a south fence 6 feet 

 high, from the top of which fence I purpose to have glass at an 

 angle of 34°, to join the front sash. This Blope will have the 

 sun constantly from sunrise to sunset; and as I shall have 4 feet 

 behind my dung-chamber, I suppose I may make that space a 

 bed for a good Vine to be planted in the centre of the back, and 

 have the benefit of the glass slope; and I suppose that such a 

 little affair will never have too much heat to have the Yine roots 

 inside, and thus avoid some risks I read of in your publications. 

 — H. 



[We think we know what sort of a house you mean — something 

 of a span or a hipped-roof ; but a few simple lines would have 

 made us more sure. As the chamber for dung is to be 3 feet 

 deep in front, we presume the front altogether will be some 

 5 or 6 feet in height. Now, having settled these matters, we 

 can assure you that if you do not mind the trouble of turning 

 the dung over in the chamber, and adding fresh often, you will 

 be able to do many thingB with such a house, more especially if 

 you do not ask it to do too much before March or so. We 

 would not advise you, however, to have rails of wood, or brush- 

 wood to cover your pit, because in the first place you may have 

 too much moist heat when you want dry heat, too much bottom 

 heat when you would like some top heat, and you might have 

 injurious steams passing through your soil and destroying the 

 effects of all your labour, if there should be such a thing as a 

 crack or a crevice in your soil. If such a house is to be so 

 managed with dung, it is of importance that fresh dung, drop- 

 pings, &c., from the stables should be used with Bafety, and for 

 this purpose a close top to the pit either of plate iron or slate, 

 then flagstone, &c, would be necesBary. In building the front 

 wall, therefore, at the Buitable height, a ledge of bricks from 2 to 



3 inches wide should be left out all the way along to receive this 

 covering of the pit, whilst the other side of the pit will receive 

 the other side of the covering, and the wall being carried above 

 it as a curb to the pit, will keep the covering firm and secure. 

 The front wall will require to be nine-inch work, and the open- 

 ings for the dung may be arched or otherwise ; but if economy 

 in heating is a matter of importance, if the front wall is hollow 

 nine-inch work, but tied together, there will be less escape of the 

 heat of the dung to the outside atmosphere. The inner wall of 

 the pit should be single brick on bed, with a pier in the middle, 

 and theBe bricks should be laid in cement, to prevent any steam 

 from the dung getting into the house. If two or three good-sized 

 slates 1 inch thick were let into this inner wall, the heat would 

 radiate from them sooner than from the bricks. 



Suppose that a covering of slate over the pit is used, and 

 firmly and securely jointed with cement, the heat from the dung 

 will be as dry almost as if it came from a flue or a steam-pipe, 

 and no noxious effluvia will be given off. As already hinted, heat 

 will be given off from the inside wall, but the chief amount of 

 heat will rise to the flooring above the pit, and when the pit is 

 pretty well filled with dung containing a fair proportion of 

 horse-droppings, the covering of the pit will get very hot indeed, 

 and it is of importance that we can have that heat damp or dry, 

 and allow it to go to the roots of plants, or keep it from them, 

 just as we like. For example : You wish to keep some plants of 

 a half-hardy character in winter, with, perhaps, the help of a 

 little covering, well damp will be the great enemy. No water 

 should be spilled in the house ; the plants over the slate should 

 be 1 foot from it, and be moved when watered, and the slate 

 covering kept as dry as possible. 



Again, you wish to Btrike cuttings in this pit in March. The 

 simplest mode would be to cover the slate with some 6 inches of 

 sand, and plunge the pots in it, easing them up if they get too 

 hot, and keeping the sand moist or dry, as you wished a moiBt 

 or a dry heat. And, once more, you propose to plant out and 

 grow Cucumbers. Well, place from 4 to 6 inches of open 

 rubble on the slate, covered with an inch of clean-washed pebbly 

 gravel. Place four or five three-inch drain-tile pipes upright 

 at the back, their bottom ends communicating with this rough 

 boulder-chamber of rubble, and place your soil above the 

 rubble. These pipes are to be stopped at their upper end with 

 plugs. The rubble will prevent the roots being Bcorched. When 

 bottom heat is wanted, keep the plugB in. In a dull day, when 

 more top heat is wanted, take them out. If a sunny day comes, 

 and there is a deficiency of bottom heat, put the plugs in, and so 

 on. The rubble might be dispensed with, if there was a second 

 rough flooring, such as common slate, supported on pieces of 

 brick 2 or 3 inches above the first and secure one, with the up- 

 right pipes opening into this shallow chamber. In either case, 

 when a moist heat was wanted, a little water poured down the 

 drain-pipes would supply moist vapour either for roots or 

 branches. Even for cuttings we would like this plan better 

 than placing sand, &c, at once on the covering of the pit. 



We are thus particular to please our correspondent, but such 

 a mode of heating could not be recommended, except where the 

 good dung cost nothing, and the labour spent in securing the 

 heat that would have otherwise been lost in decomposition is 

 considered to be well paid in the rotten dung thus obtained for 

 many purposes, all the richer from having been but little 

 exposed to air, though getting enough of this to carry on the 

 process of decomposition. 



If you used Vines at all in such a small house, we would re- 

 commend two, the Black Hamburgh, and the white Royal 

 Muscadine. They will do well in the four-foot border, if that 

 be well made, and if the pit were deeper than the top of the 

 border, the roots would not at all dislike the heat. — R. P.] 



A GARDENER'S LOVE LETTER. 



[The following epistle is dated from "Sunflower Terrace, 

 Primrose Hill," and is addressed — 



" To M , who in prospect I hold 



To make my new garden like Eden of old."] 



My Rose-Maby— As you are the Pink of Perfection, and the 

 blossom of May, I wish 'to tell you that my Heart's-easehas 

 been torn-up by the roots, and the Peas of my holm entirely 

 destroyed Bince I began to Pino after Yew. You will perceive 

 that I am a gardener. My name is William Sudd. At first I 

 was poor, but by shooting in the spring and driving a Carnation 



