G. HAD WEN— SOME EXPERIMENTS US TEMPERATURE. 195 



nights ; and the peach-trees or vines suffer from this last evil quite 

 as much in the autumn as in the spring, for the trees are by this 

 cause often beiug put to rest before the crop is ripe. Again, who 

 was prepared to learn that a lean-to orchard-house, with the back 

 wall facing the south, had such a manifest advantage over a span- 

 roofed-house with the same aspect, as we must believe it has, if in 

 the open air such a wall indicates a heat of 100° without any glass 

 to retain the air heated by its radiation ? With respect to border- 

 heating, the Rev. W. Kingsley gives some important information 

 from his experiments, which I can fully believe from my own, 

 though, as I have said, my climate has confined me to experiments 

 under glass. A few years since, I communicated to one of the 

 papers, though at the time it attracted no attention, what 

 very much surprised me. I planted, down the centre of a span- 

 roofed vinery I had supplied with bottom-heat to grow Muscats 

 in, some early French vines, with the intention of cropping them 

 till the roof was covered. The Catalogue, from which I ordered 

 them, said some of these very early ones would be ripe nearly two 

 months before the Muscat of Alexandria ; yet the result did not 

 give two weeks, and I am still of opinion that with this treatment 

 the Muscat of Alexandria is not a late grape in the meaning of 

 that term. If I am correct, forcing should still mean what its 

 name implies, that the crop by extra heat has been produced in 

 an unusually short time, and not that it was commenced at an 

 earlier date. Producing a crop in a shorter time is what we want, 

 that our fruit may ripen while our days are still warm, and, what 

 is as important, while the days are long. In Scotland, from this 

 last cause it is thought, an average wheat crop can be grown at a 

 lower temperature than in Trance, and, I believe, in a smaller 

 number of days. 



I had the other day an opportunity of questioning a gentleman 

 who had just landed from Canada upon these points, as I wished 

 to know if he would confirm what a friend of mine from St. 

 Petersburg had previously told me, respecting the amazingly 

 rapid growth of all the crops. He told me that he left Montreal 

 on the 10th of August, and that the new apples were then begin- 

 ning to come into the market, though they did not consider the 

 crop to be ripe till near the 20th of August, and that this year, which 

 Avas not a late one, there was not an apple-leaf to be seen on the 

 20th of May. I said, Do you say an apple crop can be perfected 

 in three months ? he said, Yes, you seem to overlook the length of 

 the days, and the great heat we have, often 110° in the sun and 



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