218 



REPORT ON THE 



crop was excellent, and would most probably be ripe about the 

 third week in April. M. Grison does not force the same vines 

 successively ; he only forces them every other year. 



In such pits, similarly heated, Peaches were also growing well, 

 and the fruit was further advanced than any in the houses. 



Extensive ranges of pits were occupied with the forcing of 

 vegetables, such as French Beans, Peas, Carrots, and Lettuces ; 

 of the latter a variety called the Laitue George was preferred. 

 The Peas in the pits were not in pots. The pits for French 

 Beans were furnished with copper pipes for supplying heat, in 

 addition to that derived from the duns: linings. The variety of 

 Melon then forcing was the Cantaloup Petit. Eight ranges of 

 pits were chiefly occupied with the Alpine Strawberry, that 

 being the sort preferred at the royal table. M. Grison found 

 that seedling plants of this sort, when forced, ran much to leaf, 

 but did not fruit so well as plants from runners. He accord- 

 ingly sows every year, and instead of employing the seedling 

 plants themselves, he pots, in August, the plants from the 

 runners which the seedlings produce. 



Vines on the open wall are managed according to the Thomery 

 system ; but they make much stronger growths, the soil being 

 richer than at Thomery, and also rather damp below. M. 

 Puteaux informed us he had pruned the vines on those walls for 

 forty years. They were planted 6 feet from the wall, and the 

 shoots laid towards it at the depth of 15 inches. By the Thomery 

 method, each plant has only one stem, branching into two arms, 

 extending horizontally right and left. The shoots from buds 

 along these horizontals are trained upright ; they bear the fruit, 

 and in the winter they are cut back to the lowest eyes. M. 

 Puteaux cuts them back to one eye if weak, sometimes to 

 two if strong. In pruning he always studies next year's wood 

 and fruit more than the present. He hesitates not to sacrifice a 

 fruitful but misplaced shoot, in order to obtain one more eligibly 

 situated in the following season ; acting according to the spirit of 

 a line in Jtapin : — 



" Nor spare the boughs, for sparing spoils the tree." 



He spares no shoot, however promising for fruit, if it interferes 

 with the principles of the system he has adopted. So promptly 

 has he uniformly dealt with all such, that it was not an easy 

 matter to find a perverse shoot for exemplifying in such a case 

 his mode of proceeding. The principle is, to cut back all the 

 upright shoots to the lowest eyes that can be observed ; and 

 although the lower of two adjoining shoots be the weaker, yet, 

 because the eyes at its base are the nearest to the main branch, 

 they are preferred, whilst the upper shoot, although the most 



