FORCING DEPARTMENT. :u , 



lighted to the boiler. The temperature of the house 

 was now kept up by fire heat for the remaining part 

 of the month, betwixt 42 and 45 degrees, allowing 

 10 degrees of an advance during the day. 



By the 1st of January, the flower-buds were 

 beginning to swell, when the temperature was 

 increased from 45 to 50 degrees in the evenings, 

 and not permitted to exceed 60 degrees in the day, 

 by the influence of the sun : thus endeavouring to 

 keep the atmosphere of the house in a low vegetating 

 state, with a view of strengthening the blossoms, 

 and enabling the organs of fructification to perform 

 their functions of impregnation, without which the 

 blossoms would prove abortive. 



About the middle of the month, the trees were in 

 full bloom in every part of the house, when the tem- 

 perature was regulated betwixt 55 and 60 degrees 

 at night, but admitting a large portion of air at all 

 favourable opportunities in the day. A free cir- 

 culation of this element is of infinite importance, 

 in assisting the dispersion of the pollen to the female 

 parts of the flowers. As soon as the blossom buds 

 begin to expand, the syringing of the trees must be 

 dispensed with ; but the humidity of the house kept 

 up, by pouring water in the morning and evening on 

 the pipes, and by occasionally sprinkling the borders 

 and foot-path ; the exhalation that will arise from 

 these resources will prove very beneficial to the 

 setting of the fruit. When the corolla, or petals, 

 begin to drop, and the young fruit appears about the 

 size of full grown peas, the syringe should be again 

 resumed, but the water thrown, so as rather to 

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