456 Plan for Forcing Grapes in Borders under Glass. 



operation is repeated alternately, every subsequent week; 

 experience showing that the heat becomes languid in 

 about a fortnight. By the weekly additions of dung, the 

 fermentation is renewed, and a constant and equal supply of 

 heat is maintained. The quantity of dung required to a 

 single pit, ten feet long, by seven feet wide, and four and a 

 half deep, is about ten wheel-barrows full, in each of the first 

 two weeks ; and three wheel-barrows full in every subsequent 

 week. When the pits become too full, the exhausted use- 

 less dung is removed. These pits are covered with common 

 Welsh, or Cornish slate, laid on cast-iron joists, without 

 mortar. The soil on the slate is about two feet in depth; 

 in it the Vines are planted, and trained under the glass 

 above. * 



I have long thought it unnatural to force the branches of a 

 Vine in a heated atmosphere, whilst the roots are confined 

 to a soil, that early in the season especially, is, if not frozen, 

 the very reverse of hot : and I have presumed it to be impos- 

 sible that the roots could keep pace, in their growth, with 

 the branches, and consequently maintain that supply of sap 

 required of them by the forced and accelerated advance of 

 the shoots. It is well known to gardeners that a cautious 

 and progressive temperature in the house can alone ensure 

 success in bringing out all the eyes ; that in most cases, when 

 early forcing is resorted to, a few eyes only on each shoot can 

 be made to break, and that all, except one or two of the 



* I have for several years adopted, with success, the same plan of pits for 

 raising Melons and Cucumbers; the peculiar advantage of these pits being a 

 regular and constant supply of heat for any length of time, by the addition, at 

 intervals, of fresh dung under the border in which the plants are grown. 



