BOTTOM HEAT. 



9 



In the montli of May last year I planted a cucumber- 

 house with young vines, principally from eyes the 

 same year. Their roots are confined to a border inside 

 the house, 4^ feet wide and 18 inches deep. This 

 border is heated by two rows of 4 -inch pipes under 

 pavement. There are no means of turning off this 

 bottom heat. Under one end of the pit there is a tank 

 for collecting rain-water 9 feet long, where there is no 

 bottom heat. There are two vines planted in this 

 division — one a white Frontignau, the other a Eoyal 

 Muscadine. During last summer these two vines did 

 not make the progress the others of the same kinds did 

 where they had bottom heat. And this year the dif- 

 ference is far more remarkable. In consequence of the 

 house being used for forcing strawberries and French 

 beans, the vines were started at a higher temperature 

 than they ought otherwise to have been. The bottom 

 heat soon rose to 95°, and for a few days it was 100°. 

 Those that have bottom heat broke quicker by fourteen 

 days, showing far more fruit than those that have it 

 not, and are now set and ready for thinning, while 

 those in the cold border are not in bloom ; nor is their 

 foliage much more than half the size of the same sorts 

 of vines where they have the bottom heat. I give this 

 as an example of the good effect, as far as it goes, of 

 bottom heat for vines when applied to an extent that 

 many utterly condemn. And I confess that if I had a 

 stop-valve on the bottom-heat pipes, I would moderate 

 the heat as compared with what it is ; I will, however, 

 be guided as to whether I place one there by the results 

 at the end of the forcing season. 



The mere heating of the soil of the border by these 

 appliances is not the only advantage that results. There 

 is the additional and important one of the constant 



