VINERIES. 



325 



Mr Spencer observes, that had he " had 

 the entire building of the house in the 

 first place," he would " have preferred 

 building the back wall sufficiently high 

 to have left room for the back ventila- 

 tors to have opened above the wall-plate, 

 and immediately under the coping, to 

 remedy the evil, in the present case, of a 

 direct current of cold air passing through." 

 He has "attached to the north side a 

 frame which prevents the air entering 

 the house directly from the outside." — 

 Jour, of Hort. Soc. 



Reference to section and ground-plan : 

 a back wall of house ; b floor of house ; 

 c supports to front plate; d large air- 

 drain running parallel with the house ; 

 e air-drains entering from behind ; / open 

 chamber for hot-water pipes or flue ; g ven- 

 tilators in back wall ; h drains for admit- 

 ting external air to d ; i air-drains com- 

 municating with d, and opening into/; 

 h border for vines ; 1 1 hot- water pipes ; 

 m sliding valves for regulating admission 

 of air through drain e ; n valves for ad- 

 mitting air from main drain d. 



Subterranean chambering vine borders at 

 Welbeck. — In the gardens of the Duke of 

 Portland, at Welbeck, has been exemplified 

 a mode of rendering the bottoms of vine 

 borders dry by chambering them under- 

 neath, and their surfaces dry by covering 

 them with rafters and glass sashes. Glass 

 is now cheap, and a very inferior quality 

 will do as well for this purpose as any 

 other ; nay, even a covering of common 

 roof-tiles, such as has been used in other 

 places, will answer the same end, except- 

 ing in so far as the transmission of light 

 is concerned. That the bottoms of vine 

 borders, as well as their tops, should be 

 kept free from excess of damp, is admitted 

 by all; but it seems questionable whether 

 all this expense should be incurred in 

 such a case as that of Welbeck, where 

 the annual fall of rain does not exceed 

 that of several of the adjoining counties;-— 

 because, though the garden lies low, and 

 only a few feet above the level of an ad- 

 joining rivulet, the common drainage of 

 that part of the park, yet, by adding 3 feet 

 to the height of the back and front wall, 

 and raising the roof to that height, 3 feet 

 of drainage of broken stones, brickbats, 

 flints, or other similar matter, would have 

 been secured, which would produce as dry 

 a bottom, and at little more expense, than 



that of either chambering the border, or 

 covering it with rafters and sashes. 



Were all the houses at Welbeck ele- 

 vated upon a terrace 3 feet above the 

 present level of the garden, and the front 

 of that terrace finished with a dwarf 

 retaining-wall, as formerly recommended, 

 the fine ranges there would have a far 

 more imposing appearance than they have 

 at present, and the borders would be com- 

 pletely exempted from the evils of stag- 

 nation and damp at their bottoms. We 

 have too high an opinion of Mr Tillery, 

 the present gardener at Welbeck, to 

 think for a moment that he entertains 

 different views from what we have here 

 expressed ; but we know the difficulty of 

 persuading even liberal and intelligent 

 proprietors to alter or correct evils which 

 have long existed. We would not have 

 alluded to this matter here, had it not 

 been that Welbeck has been celebrated 

 for its vine-culture for more than a cen- 

 tury — having been the field upon which 

 Speechly operated, as well as succeeding 

 gardeners of great worth in their profes- 

 sion, of whom Mr Tillery, although last, 

 is not the least. We were also prompted 

 to notice this matter, from seeing a sec- 

 tion of one of these houses published in 

 the " Gardeners' Journal," of which the 

 annexed fig. 437 is a copy ; and after the 



Fig. 437. 



following explanatory remarks, we shall 

 give the references to the diagram : " As 

 it is a very heavy wet soil about there 

 (Welbeck) and the neighbourhood, the 

 vines are found, without the precaution 

 of borders being well chambered (as in 

 the annexed plan) or extremely well 

 drained, to make but little progress ; and 

 the grapes are not found to be of that 

 superior quality they should be, without 

 the borders being peculiarly adapted to 

 the locality. As it will be seen, by refer- 



