22 THE CULTURE OF THE GRAPE. 



portions ; the length cf it can be as desired, from twenty 

 to one hundred feet oi more. 



The front of the house should be framed, the sills 

 standing on, and secured to, stone, or locust posts, set 

 four or five feet under ground, and eight feet apart, thus 

 giving the roots freedom to roam at pleasure. The floor of 

 the house should be on a level with the surface of the 

 border. The back wall may be either of brick or wood. 

 If the house is to be used for forcing fruit, it should have 

 a double wah on the back. A span-roofed house is the 

 best for a cold grapery." It should be, above the sills, 

 on all sides of glass, and of the following dimensions : — 

 twenty feet wide, and of any length desired ; the upright 

 sides above the sills, six feet high ; the rafters should be 



*• " In a span-roofed house sixty feet long, the south side glazed, tho 

 north, wood and asphalte, vines will not do well under the latter. Better 

 glaze tlie north span ; but, depend upon it, you would do better still were 

 you to add another sixty feet to the length, and so form one hundred and 

 twenty feet of roof facing tlie south, instead of employing the same qiian- 

 tity of glass for a house half the length witli a double aspect ;. and the more 

 especially, if it is intended for early forcing." — Gardeners' Chronicle, p. 696, 

 Oct. 1346. 



A house of this construction is not suitable for forcing grapes, it being all 

 of glass, and consequently so open to tlie admittance of air in very cold, 

 windy weather, that it is very difEeult to avoid such extremes of tempera- 

 ture as will be injurious to vines. If peaches or cherries are to be forced, 

 such a house is desirable, and, for many kinds of pot plants, no better can 

 be had. "With respect to the correctness of the opinion expressed above, 

 that it is better to build a house of double the length, with the same quan- 

 tity of glass, it depends upon what uses the house is to be pufto. As a 

 cold grapery, and as a house where the vines are aided by tirtificial hear, 

 (but not forced,) it is superior in its arrangements to the lean-to house, and 

 under the same circumstances, will perfect its crop ten or fifteen dnys sooner 

 and will yield a larger amount of fruit on a given space. It is more lla'nle 

 to damage from hail and frost. (See descriptiou of one of ray spau-roofi^ij 

 houses.) 



