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XXIII. On a Method of Forcing Peaches and Nectarines, 

 principally by Dung Heat, as practised in the Garden of 

 Sir Thomas Neave, Bart. F. H. S. In a Letter to the 

 Secretary. By Mr. John Breese, Corresponding Member 

 of the Society. 



Read November 5, 1822. 



Sir, 



I herewith do myself the honour to describe a method of 

 forcing Peaches and Nectarines principally by dung heat, my 

 object being to obtain every advantage which that kind of 

 heat is capable of affording. The house is seventy feet long 

 by eleven feet wide, the front wall being five feet and a half 

 deep from the bottom of the lights that form the roof (there 

 being no upright lights in front) to the ground ; about three 

 feet and a half of the bottom of this wall is open brick work 

 with a flue in the inside, the top of which is covered with 

 plain tiles ; the inside of the house is filled up with earth 

 to within two feet of the bottom of the fights, and the 

 trees planted as near as possible to the front wall, and 

 trained under the lights on wires, in the same way as Vines ; 

 the back wall of a Pine-pit is built of the same height as 

 the front of the Peach-house, and three feet distant from it ; 

 this of course forms a space three feet wide for the hot dung : 

 as soon as I wish to begin forcing, this space is filled with 

 hot dung ; the roots being near the flue soon begin to feel the 

 warmth, and I sometimes take off a few tiles from the top of 

 the flue, so as to admit the steam from the hot dung into the 



