38 



HOT-BEDS 



[chap. 



such as geraniums, heaths, and the Hke, I should choose to have 

 bulbous-rooted plants of various sorts, even the most common, not 

 excluding snow-drops and crocuses. Primroses and violets (the 

 common single sorts, for the others have no smell), cowslips and 

 daisies ; some dwarf roses ; and thus a very beautiful tlower- 

 garden would be to be seen in the month of February, or still 

 more early. Green-house plants are always set out of doors in the 

 summer, when they are generally very much eclipsed in beauty by 

 plants of a hardy and more vigorous description. If there be no 

 green-house, these plants are taken into the house, shut up in a 

 small space, very frequently in the shade, and always from strong 

 light, especially early in the morning ; which greatly injures, and, 

 sometimes, totally destroys, them ; besides, they really give no 

 pleasure, except in winter ; for, as was observed before, after the 

 month of May comes, they are far surpassed in beauty by the 

 shrubberies and the parterre. 



56. Nor is such a place without its real use, for few persons 

 will deny that fruit is of use ; none will deny that fine grapes are 

 amongst the best of fruit ; we all know that these are not to be 

 had in England, in the general run of years, without the assistance 

 of glass ; and the green-house, in which the shade of the grapes 

 would do no injury to the plants, because these would be out in 

 the open air, except at the time when there would be little of leaf 

 upon the vines, is as complete a thing for a grapery as if made for 

 that sole purpose ; for, if the heat of from forty to fifty degrees 

 would bring the vines to bear at a time, or, rather, to send out 

 their leaves at a time inconvenient for the plants, you have nothing 

 to do but to take the vine branches out of the house, and keep 

 them there until such time that tbey might be put in again with- 

 out their leaves producing an inconvenient shade over the plants, 

 previous to the time of these latter being moved out into the 

 open air. 



57. As the green-house would have given you a beautiful 

 flower-garden and shrubbery during the winter, making the part 

 of the house to which it is attached the pleasantest place in the 

 world, so, in summer, what can be imagined more beautiful than 

 bunches of grapes hanging down, surrounded by elegant leaves, 

 and proceeding on each grape from the size of a pin's head to 

 the size of a plum ? How the vines are to be planted, trained 

 and pruned ; and how the fceveral plants suited to a green-house 



