44 



GLEANINGS ON HORTICULTURE. 



In Mr. Ker's plan, the back posts are only four feet six inches 

 from the ground, and the front about three feet; /as trellis is 

 only two feet six inches from the ground at the back, and one 

 foot at the front ; so that it would be difficult for any gardener to 

 disbud the trees in it. " Strong posts are (like those in my shed) 

 placed in the ground at each corner, and other smaller posts in- 

 serted at every two feet at the back and front, and strengthened 

 by being united by iron rods ; to these posts are nailed rafters 

 every five feet, on a plate two and a half inches by two, to receive 

 the lights, as in a hot-bed frame, and these lights (five feet wide 

 and twelve feet long) are fixed by screws to the plates." — Vide 

 Gardener's Chronicle for 1848, pp. 827 and 843. 



This invention promises to be the beginning of a new era 

 in English gardening. A model will be found in the window of 

 Mr. Kernan's shop at the corner of Charles-street and Russell- 

 street, Covent-garden, and a pattern is in preparation in the 

 garden of the Horticultural Society. We all know that the apricot, 

 admirable fruit as it is, rarely acquires much excellence here — to 

 say nothing of its uncertainty as a crop — owing to our early 

 frosts. Nor do we at all see wh}' capital grapes should not be 

 had by this plan, without the great expense of hot-houses and 

 heating apparatus — Warner's conservatory boiler being excepted. 

 This contrivance is also applicable to early cherries — such as the 

 Temple Precoce, grafted on Mahaleb stocks — to choice plums — 

 the Reine Claude de Bavay, &c., and to a delicate variety of figs. 



STUDS TO BE USED INSTEAD OF NAILS AND SHREDS, THE SHOOTS 

 BEING TIED TO THEM WITH CUBA-BAST. 



If you wish to keep your walls in good order, and free from 

 insects, and to train your trees at less expense than they can be 

 with nails and shreds (the old plan, which will soon be obsolete), 

 drive in common cast-iron nails as studs, after they have been 

 heated till they are red-hot upon an old shovel, and afterwards 

 put into a can of boiling oil — for all corrosion is thus prevented, 

 and durability insured. Fan-trained trees require the studs eight 

 or nine inches apart in every course of bricks ; but for pear-trees 

 trained horizontally, they are sufficiently close in alternate 

 courses. A little attention to inserting the studs in straight lines, 

 and at regular distances, gives a pleasing appearance to those 

 parts of the wall to which the branches have not yet extended 

 themselves. The easiest way of proceeding is to procui-e a 



