142 FRUIT CULTURE UNDER GLASS. 



keep frost from the trees when in blossom. I have 

 known peach-blossom destroyed in narrow lean-to peach- 

 houses by severe spring frosts. And with the means of 

 keeping frost out, the iioor of the house is available for 

 flower-garden plants. 



In all peach-houses ventilation should be amply pro- 

 vided for. In the case of very early forcing, when the 

 crop is all gathered before the 1st of June, the top and 

 bottom ventilation should be very abundant ; indeed it is 

 a good plan to have the roof constructed so that the 

 lights can be partly, if not wholly, removed for two or 

 three months in the heat of summer. At all events, the 

 ventilation should be amply sufficient to keep the house 

 as cool as possible. The whole of the side lights of 

 span-roofed houses should open, and the top ventilation 

 be made so as to open to a considerable extent. In re- 

 commending the covering of existing peach-walls with 

 glass, I am fuUy convinced that this will always be 

 found satisfactory, inasmuch as without doing anything 

 else to the peach-trees, if in other respects they are in 

 moderate condition, the mere covering of them with 

 glass will not only insure crops of peaches every year, 

 but all blistering of the foliage, and most of the other 

 ills which beset the peach in the greater number of the 

 gardens of this country, will be got rid of. At Archer- 

 field I had a peach-wall covered on which the trees for- 

 merly did very little good, and after being covered with 

 a lean-to house, they speedily became healthy and vigor- 

 ous, annually bearing great quantities of fine fruit. The 

 same applies to the peach-waU at Dalkeith, and other 

 places that could be named. 



