VINERIES. 



303 



placed a shelf for French beans and 

 strawberries. The vines are trained 

 against the back wall only, the time of 

 forcing beginning about the first of 

 November. The application of ferment- 

 ing dung in this manner is both useless 

 and wasteful; and hence, in cold coun- 

 tries, it would be better to build the walls 

 not only of greater thickness, but also to 

 construct them hollow. 



In the Royal Gardens at Copenhagen, 

 portable frames are used to ripen grapes 

 already established on walls. These 

 frames may be placed over an entire vine, 

 over part of a vine, or over part of two 

 vines. The branches chosen for forcing 

 are introduced through the boarded ends, 

 and heat is supplied by filling a pit within 

 with hot dung, or dung and leaves, or 

 with a mixture of these and tanner's bark. 

 The same branches are not forced the 

 following season. The ends of the struc- 

 ture are formed of boarding, fastened to 

 wooden uprights. Such simple contri- 

 vances might be worth the attention of 

 amateurs in the south of England, where 

 vines are grown upon the open walls ; 

 but as forcing-pits or houses in any other 

 part of a country abounding in fuel, we 

 think them below mediocrity. Branches 

 of vines are also often taken inside the 

 windows of dwelling-houses in many 

 parts of the Continent, where the fruit 

 ripens much earlier than on the open 

 wall, affording at the same time an agree- 

 able shade, and a certain amount of en- 

 joyment in watching their approaching 

 maturity. 



French's vinery. — Mr French culti- 

 vated grapes for several years with 

 great success by the following process : 

 — The heat was derived from a ridge 

 of stable dung laid along the floor of 

 the house, and repeatedly turned over 

 and renewed with fresh material as the 

 former became decayed. To moderate 

 the steam arising from fermentation, after 

 the buds were fairly broke, the fresh sup- 

 plies were laid at the bottom, and the 

 more decayed laid on the top. The ven- 

 tilation was secured by a very simple 

 method applied at the top of the back 

 wall. It may be remarked that Mr 

 French was an extensive farmer, and 

 his vinery was in connection with his 

 farmyard ; — the waste of manure, there- 

 fore, in this case, was not great; nor 



was the labour of taking it in and out 

 serious. 



Atkinson 's vineries. — Vineries continued 

 long to be erected upon the principle 

 laid down by Speechly, Nicol, Hay, and 

 others ; nor was it till the late Mr Atkin- 

 son, about 1809, turned his attention to 

 the subject, that much alteration was 

 effected, either in their form or the mode 

 of heating. Mr Atkinson was not a specu- 

 lative hothouse architect, nor did he ex- 

 perimentalise at the expense of others ; 

 for he had, prior to this date, erected 

 vineries in his own garden at Grove End, 

 that he might with greater convenience 

 and certainty watch the working of them. 

 The object this eminent architect had in 

 view was economy combined with utility ; 

 hence he adopted the solid brick wall in 

 front, alluded to by Nicol, and thus saved 

 the expense of the front upright sashes — 

 nearly one-third of the gross expense of 

 the whole roof. He substituted wooden 

 ventilators in these walls — a great im- 

 provement on the tin tubes suggested by 

 Nicol. He also adopted small glass 6" x 

 4" — a vast saving as regarded the excise 

 duty, and still more so in the wear and 

 tear; and greatly improved the furnace 

 of Nicol, and ultimately applied hot water 

 as the heating medium. Amongst the 

 earliest examples of Atkinson's improve- 

 ments were those at Scone Palace, Kin- 

 fauns, and elsewhere. 



The accompanying cross section, fig. 



409, and ground-plan, fig. 410, exhibit 

 his principles clearly. The roof sashes 



