304 



FRUIT-HOUSES. 



are fixed, or every alternate top one, at 

 most, made movable ; and ventilation is 



Fig. 410. 



effected by openings in the front wall a, 

 and near the top of the back wall b. The 

 furnace is placed in the shed behind, and 

 the flues enter the house under the floor- 

 level, and proceed to within two feet of 

 the front wall, to admit of the vines being 

 planted inside the house, so as to sustain 

 no injury by the heat. They then rise 

 above the surface, and pass to the farther 

 end of the house, whence they return to 

 where they entered, and the smoke is dis- 

 charged by a chimney just over the fur- 

 nace. To economise building, two fur- 

 naces are placed in each stoke-hole, the 

 flues of which diverge to the right hand 

 and to the left, as seen in fig. 410. The 

 front wall is built on arches or on piers, 

 lintelled over, the tops of either rising to 

 within a few inches of the surface of the 



border, so that the roots of the vines when 

 planted within may find a free passage 

 out to the external border. This artist 

 in general planted his vines within the 

 house, so that the stems might be pro- 

 tected from frost. There is no upright 

 glass in these houses, as seen by fig. 409. 

 The parapet is carried up 2 feet, and in 

 it wooden ventilators are placed at regu- 

 lar distances. The end sashes open upon 

 hinges. These houses varied in length 

 from 28 to 39 feet, according as they 

 were for early or late crops ; the smallest 

 being, of course, that intended for being 

 first ripe. Their height at back was 10 

 feet from footpath level to top of rafter ; 

 12 feet wide in the clear; and the front 

 2 feet high above the level of the 

 border. 



Atkinson's vineries heated by hot water. — 

 We cannot illustrate this kind of house 

 better than by giving a cross section, fig. 

 411, of one of those erected at Woburn 

 Abbey from designs by that gentleman, 

 from which it will be seen it differs in 

 some important respects from the last, as 

 well as from most of those erected by him. 

 The length, width, and back height are the 

 same as in the last figure. The front wall 

 consists principally of piers placed 3| feet 

 apart, and brought up to the ground- 

 level, where they are lintelled over with 

 pavement, as affording more space for the 



Fig. 411. 



•7^ 



roots than if they were arched over in 

 brick. Above the pavement are 15 inches 

 of a solid wall, on which the wall-plate is 

 laid to receive the front sashes, which, in 

 this case, are substituted for the wooden 



♦ 



