880 APPLICATION OF PRINCIPLES. 



of April and May, very greatly that of the warmest 

 valley in Jamaica in the hottest period of the year. 

 There are probably as few forcing-houses in which 

 the trees are not more strongly stimulated b}'^ the 

 close and damp air of the night, than by the tempera- 

 ture of the dry air of the noon of the following day. 

 The practice which occasions this cannot be right : it 

 is in direct opposition to nature." In the same paper 

 from which the foregoing is an extract {Hort. Trans., 

 ii. V6o), the same great experimentalist records the 

 result of his own management of a peach-house, where 

 a due regard was had to the preservation of a suffi- 

 ciently low temperature at night. "As early in the 

 spring as I wanted the blossoms of ray Peach trees to 

 unfold, my hou.se was made warm during the middle 

 of the day ; but towards night it was suffered to cool, 

 and the trees were then sprinkled, by means of a large 

 syringe, with clear water, as nearly at the tempera- 

 ture at which that usually rises from the ground, as 

 I could obtain it ; and little or no artificial heat was 

 given during the night, unless there appeared a pros- 

 pect of frost. Under this mode of treatment, the 

 blossoms advanced with very great vigour, and as 

 rapidly as I wished them, and presented, when ex- 

 panded, a larger size than I had ever before seen of 

 the same varieties ; which circumstance is not unim- 

 portant, because the size of the blossom, in any given 

 variety, regulates, to a very considerable extent, the 

 bulk of the future fruit." 



