HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OK LONDON. 



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stove, and they have succeeded much better than others of the 

 same kinds, which were allowed to remain in a hii;h temperature. 

 Many of those which are most unmanageable in the Orchidaceous 

 house succeed here without any trouble ; it is evidently the most 

 natural place for them, as in other circumstances they are 

 overexcited, growing sickly and languid, forming smaller pseudo- 

 bulbs and leaves every year, and tinally perishing. 



Mr. Loddiges and, I believe, Mr. Bateman have both ex- 

 perienced the same results ; it is, therefore, a circumstance which 

 cannot be too well known, because many persons have been 

 deterred from growing Orchidaceous plants, by believing that they 

 require such a high temperature. The house in the garden where 

 they are grown has no artificial heat during the greater part of the 

 summer, and in winter it is kept at about 55 degrees. The air, 

 however, is always kept more moist than in a common green- 

 house. 



January 18, 184^. 



ORDINARY MEETING. 



There was read, from Mr. George Shiells, of Erskine House, 

 near Glasgow, a communication on the Cultivation of Grapes 

 on flued walls in the open iiir in Scotland. The author premised 

 that his vine border is composed of a strong loam, upon a porous 

 whinstone bottom, and is mulched over every winter with littery 

 dung. In the spring the strawy part is taken cfF and the re- 

 mainder forked lightly in. The border is well watered with 

 drainings from the dunghill two or three times in the course 

 of the season. 



In former years, when the summers were more warm and 

 sunny, his practice was as follows. 



About the end of April or beginning of May, when the clusters 

 began to appear, a double net was placed against the wall to 

 protect them, having the upper side fixed over the projecting 

 edge of the coping and the under side fastened to stakes placed 

 four-feet distant from the wall. This netting was allowed to 

 remain until the end of June, or until all the fruit was set. Fire- 

 heat was not applied until the middle or latter end of May^in 

 order to bring the clusters to blossom early in June, so that the 

 whole crop might be set by the end of that month. In bright 

 sunshine very moderate fires were kept during the day. If 

 the fine weather continued the fire was omitted from the middle 

 of July till the middle of August, after which time the wall had 



