August 23, 1864. ] 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



153 



ground level. Except in being heated by hot water the pit 

 does not differ from an ordinary one. 



Fig. 8 is the end section of a pit heated by hot- water pipes, 

 differing little from the preceding, except in the bottom heat 

 being supplied by two four-inch pipes to a chamber, a a, the 

 soil being supported above by flagstones, which also form 

 the upper cover of the hot-air chamber, two of their ends 

 and sides rest on the outer walls, th/j other on pillars of 

 brick or stone as o. The flags are not laid in mortar but 

 have the joints open. A few inches of rubble placed on the 

 flags prevent the joints from becoming choked with soil. 

 There are two four-inch pipes in front for top heat, c is the 

 space for a thickness of 1 foot of soil, and d the space for 

 the plants ; e e is the ground level. This mode of furnish- 

 ing bottom heat to Melons — viz., by hot-air chambers, is 

 preferable to placing rubble over the pipes as in fig. 7, or 

 soil immediately in contact with the pipes. The heat is 

 more equable by the chamber system, and communicates to 

 the soil above a much lower temperature ; but the heat is 

 greatest by the other plan immediately above the pipes, 

 whilst the remaining parts of the soil are nearly cold. By 

 the chamber system there is a large volume of heated air of 

 an equable temperature throughout, presenting the same 

 evenness as a bed of fermenting materials. There are more 

 ways of communicating top and bottom heat for Melons, but 

 these two are the best that I know of. In fixing the pipes 

 it is advisable to have those for top heat flows, and those 

 for bottom heat returns. — G-. Abbey. 

 (To be continued.) 



OECHAED-HOUSES. 



In retiring from this controversy I cannot but think Mr. 

 Abbey would have been wise to have dropped the subject 

 instead of reopening the question. What does he wish to 

 prove, or , what impression does he wish to produce before 

 retiring ? Is it that he did not advocate open walls heated 

 by flues for the production of Peaches in place of orchard- 

 houses ? Tour Number of April 19th will settle that question. 

 Is it that he cannot grow Peaches without fire heat ? Pew 

 will be disposed to doubt his evidence in such a cause. Is 

 it that no one else can grow Peaches and Apricots without 

 fire heat ? Scarcely, one would think, whilst every year Mr. 

 Rivers and myself advertise when our fruit is ripe, and invite 

 all the country to see it. Is it that the fruit is inferior 

 when grown under glass? Of course it may be if badly 

 grown, if the trees are covered with red spider ; but is it 

 necessarily so ? This is what is so trying to our tempers, 

 that people who know so little of the subject should reiterate 

 such nonsense time after time. Mr. Abbey says, " An Apricot 

 from an orchard-house is of a sickly colour all over." Why, 

 he never can have seen one. I have some now better in 

 flavour than he or any one else ever ate from a wall, and as 

 handsome in colour as an Apricot can be, equally ripened all 

 round, and like a sack of honey in texture, and Mr. Rivers 

 has had this year pecks of such fruit. Then with regard to 

 Peaches, my man has just sent in a Grosse Mignonne, which 

 has fallen off a tree growing in the old orchard-house 

 with boarded sides and ends, and with an open ventilating 

 space, which cannot be closed, under the eaves all round ; it 

 weighs nearly half a pound, and is one of many like it left 

 on the trees. If Peaches and Apricots are not superior when 

 grown in an orchard-house to those from an open wall, what 



are we to think of the moral character of those who have 

 eaten the thousands we have given away? I have never 

 yet heard one who said he or she had eaten as good from a 

 wall, and I have refused 7s. a-dozen for a whole houseful of 

 Peaches, that I might give all who came an opportunity of 

 judging. All that I would contend for is, that what is easy 

 to me ought not to be difficult to any one worthy of the 

 name of a gardener. 



Mr. Abbey says many orchard-houses have failed. There is 

 no doubt of it ; what other kind of cultivation does not fail 

 in many places ? I was shown three good vineries some 

 time since with twenty-three bunches of Grapes in the three 

 houses : successful Grape-growing is too common for the 

 system to bear the blame in this instance. I had a gardener 

 here only yesterday who said his crop of fruit was quite 

 equal to mine, and his trees as clean and healthy, who failed 

 miserably the first year. He acknowledged he had not half 

 watered his trees the first season, and they were eaten up 

 with red spider ; he took more care of them afterwards, and 

 for two years the trees have been all one could wish. I said, 

 "Well, what do you think of the system now? " "Why," 

 he said, " I hope to have another house soon, for I take more 

 pleasure in the orchard-house than anything else." I do 

 not like to mention names of private individuals without 

 their leave, but as the place is only six miles from here I 

 will undertake to show it to Mr. Abbey. Within a mile or 

 two of this place I can point out several houses where the 

 gardeners failed the first year, and never afterwards. If 

 trees are but kept clean and healthy there is less difficulty 

 in fruiting them every season. This, as well as greater ex- 

 perience, is sufficient to account for success. Many of my 

 best trees have been ten years in pots. 



But are there no cases of constant failure ? I am happy to 

 say I only know of one in this neighbourhood. A gentleman 

 in the north of this county built a good house, I think three 

 years since ; when his gardener received the plants which 

 had been pinched during summer and were full of well- 

 ripened buds, he cut most of them down to improve them. Of 

 course the first season was a failure. During that summer 

 he refused to pinch the trees, "he had grown Peach trees 

 before, and knew all about it." The house was like a Willow 

 holt, full of long unripened shoots, many of which were cut 

 down again in spring, and there was a very small crop the 

 second year. The third summer I met the owner, who told 

 me he had a better crop, but not at all what he expected ; 

 I told him it was more than I expected if he had any im- 

 provement to report. But he asked, "What would you 

 advise me to do ? I have a few trees with a good crop upon 

 them, and should like them to be fine, how ought my man 

 to treat them ? I told him my man had just top-dressed 

 ours with a mixture of horse-droppings and malt dust, and 

 he would repeat the dressing in July. The gentleman told 

 his gardener what he had heard. In a day or two afterwards 

 this Solon in a blue apron took out several inches of soil, 

 quite baring the roots, and placed this hot stimulating 

 manure in immediate contact with them ! Of course all the- 

 fruit and most of the foliage dropped off, and so ends act 

 . the third — three seasons lost. The gentleman was advised 

 when next he top-dressed a grass field to pare off the turf 

 first, and he acknowledged it would be a parallel case. There 

 are many men who will never learn this or any other new 

 system of cultivation. If they were in a position to see it 

 every day, they would in time learn it as they learnt all they 

 know, by what is termed rule of thumb, a rule which requires 

 very little causality. 



I shall always hold that success is the rule, non-success 

 the exception, in all cultivation under glass, where talent is 

 united with industry. Where climate and moisture are 

 under control there is but little room for excuses. After 

 many years of experience I can honestly say the orchard- 

 house is all, and more than all, I hoped for. In a bad cold 

 district hot-water pipes may be necessary — here they are 

 not required — to get better fruit, with certainty, every season, 

 than we can ever produce on walls. 



When houses are built for each kind of fruit, and Apricots, 

 Peaches, Plums, Cherries, &c, are grown separately, a new 

 era will have commenced in gardening ; and when 300 square 

 yards can be covered with a house fit for a nobleman for a 

 little more than £200, who can doubt such will be the case ? 

 In a short time men will be found writing that there is . 



