mr. wvnn — mr. Pearson's nurseries. 



51 



The orchard-houses here are models of their kind — roomy, 

 elegant, and substantial, yet withal simple and useful, while the 

 trees cultivated in them, and heavily laden with fine handsome 

 and luscious fruit, were objects " to be seen once and thought of 

 for ever." The principal house is 100 feet long, and 30 feet wide ; 

 the paths are paved with diamond-shaped tiles, and bordered 

 with a round-headed curbing, which gives to the interior a very 

 neat appearance. There are two rows of the leading varieties of 

 standard peaches, planted one on each side of the central path ; 

 and the remaining space is filled up with fine examples of cultiva- 

 tion in pots, some of which, I was informed by Mr. Pearson, had 

 been in the same pots some eight or ten years. Objection has 

 been made to the cultivation of trees in pots, on account of the 

 quantity of water required, and the trouble of watering them ; 

 but this objection is applicable to all other plants grown in pots ; 

 and the pots, being moveable, afford greater facility for arranging 

 the house in an ornamental point of view, and for making any 

 repairs, painting, &c. The trees are not placed thickly together, 

 each one getting an equal share of light and air, a most important 

 desideratum in the cultivation of orchard-house trees. Nor is 

 the practice carried out here of making up a house of bearing 

 trees, the same plants remaining in the same house year after 

 year ; but, when a plant is sold, a young one is brought in to take 

 its place, remaining there until it is disposed of. The compost 

 which Mr. Pearson uses for his pot-trees consists of strong yellow 

 loam, rotten dung, road-scrapings, and chalk, and is prepared in 

 the following manner : — A quantity of loam and dung is brought 

 together, the whole is then formed into a heap, by putting a 

 layer of loam about 1 foot in thickness, and then a layer of dung 

 in the same proportion, a layer of loam on the top of that, and so 

 on, until the heap is completed. This is allowed to remain un- 

 disturbed for a month or two, and is then turned over regularly 

 about once a month, until it is required for use, the whole being 

 thus well incorporated ; and, at the time of potting, chalk and 

 road-scrapings are mixed up with it in sufficient proportions to 

 make the whole of an open and permeable nature. The varieties 

 more especially to be noticed, on account of their fruitful and 

 luxuriant appearance, were the following, viz. : — of peaches, the 

 Grosse Mignonne was very fine in size and flavour; Erench 

 Gralande (more commonly known as Bellegarde) was also very 

 fine in quality and appearance. Crawford's Early, a large yellow- 



