April 27, 1882. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 339 
to reach the foliage, hut the latter is altogether bodily 
turned into the frosty air after being subjected to a 
whole night’s stewing. 
To minimise the evil effects of giving air it should 
be given when there is the least possible difference 
between the internal and external temperatures, and 
in order to do this we must study the weather some¬ 
what. By watching the clouds and in many other 
ways we may with practice tell within a little liow 
much air is likely to be wanted on a certain house 
during the day, and then by beginning early we may, 
if the weather is settled, admit all the ah* we are likely 
to want before there is much rise of temperature, and 
when this is done giving air is a very simple matter. 
We will suppose we have a house facing the east in 
which the night temperature aimed at is 55°, and the 
mercury stands at that figure or 5° lower on a bright 
calm morning. I should not wait for it to rise even 
half a degree before affording ventilation, and the mode 
would entirely depend on the outside temperature. 
Supposing the outside temperature to be only some 
5° or 10° lower than that of the house, then I do not 
hesitate to open the ventilators so soon as the sun 
| touches the glass to one-fourtli of the extent they are 
likely to be required open during any part of the day. 
However, it is not safe to begin ventilating on so large 
a scale till we have had considerable practice with the 
particular house on which we are operating. The 
thing to be aimed at is to admit the air early, and 
to let the rise of temperature nearly all take place 
afterwards. For beginners it is best to give a little air 
as quickly as possible, then watch the thermometer, 
and if the mercury is inclined to go upward give a 
little more and watch till it shows symptoms of rising 
again. This should be continued till by watching and 
slightly increasing the ventilation a little at a time we 
have as much on as is likely to be required any time 
during the day, and this before the internal tempera¬ 
ture has risen more than 2° or 3°. What happens in 
regard to the temperature one day will be a guide for 
the next if the weather is of a similar kind. But this 
question of the weather I find is an exceeding^ hard 
one for young men to master. After a day or two 
da} T s’ tuition an intelligent lad is generally quite safe so 
long as the weather remains exactly the same, but the 
buoyancy of his nature I suppose makes it all fine 
weather to him, and changes unless they are great are 
unnoticed. 
When a house faces south the sun has not much 
power on it even at midsummer before six o’clock, and 
that hour is sufficiently early to begin ventilating un¬ 
less it is when colouring has commenced; but a house 
facing east is never safe during summer to be left later 
than five o’clock, and at critical times it should be 
attended to as early as 4.30 a.m. If I enter a house 
with which I am pretty well acquainted at ten o’clock 
on a bright day for the first time I can generally tell if 
the air has not been given sufficiently early without 
using my eyes ; for supposing every ventilator then is 
open to its full extent, nothing that can be done that 
morning will make amends for an early neglect, and 
there is a want of that comfortable sort of feeling which 
I cannot describe, but which is instantly detected by 
an experienced enthusiast of early ventilation who 
loves his plants only slightly less than he loves himself, 
and cannot help feeling uncomfortable when he imagines 
they are so. 
Air-giving during a typical March day is a much 
more difficult matter with our modern light-built 
houses than with those older ones of small panes and 
thick rafters, and to know what to do for the best when 
there is alternate sunshine and shower often puzzles 
the most experienced amongst us, and it is extremely 
difficult to give advice on the subject. The only advice 
I shall attempt to give will be general, and that is to 
anticipate the weather as much as possible, and reduce 
the air immediately after (or, what is better, before) 
the disappearance of the sun if it is likely from the 
look of the clouds to be invisible for some time, and to 
be ever on the alert when the clouds are getting a little 
thinner, to be, if possible, slightly in advance of the 
sunshine in re-opening. A minute too late at such 
times is often quite sufficient to disfigure a whole house, 
and many a time have I run half a mile to see that all 
was right when I have not had sufficient confidence in 
the attendant. But a trusty man who can go about 
his work without any directions at such times is in¬ 
valuable, and I invariably find that nothing but a little 
careful tuition in the first rudiments of the different 
branches of the profession is necessary to put such a 
one in the way of becoming a first-rate gardener in 
every respect. During the early part of a day when 
the weather is extremely changeable I think it is best 
not to aim at a high temperature, but merely to keep a 
safe one, and then unless the Vines are in flower or the 
Grapes colouring to close early in the afternoon and 
allow the highest temperature which is considered safe. 
Should the temperature by any accident or neglect 
ever get too high before air is admitted it must on no 
account be lowered by that process ; the very slightest 
opening may be made to prevent a further rise, and the 
floor of the house may be sprinkled. When a cloud is 
only a small one and likely to be passed in a few 
minutes it is unnecessary to reduce the ventilation.— 
Wm. Taylor. 
(To be continued.) 
PRUNING AND MANURING ROSES. 
Your esteemed correspondent, “ J. A. W., Alder minster," 
hardly does me justice in his criticism on what I wrote under the 
above heading in your issue for March 30th. I did not advocate 
the total disuse of manure in the cultivation of the Rose : and if 
those of your readers who are interested in the matter will refer 
to my former communication they will see that I do use it, and 
only advise others against using too much, believing that most 
growers who can afford to do so give far too much. I for one am 
perfectly satisfied that gorging Roses with manure is not con¬ 
ducive either to their longevity or floriferousness. One important 
particular your correspondent leaves out in his proposal for a 
number of growers to grow a few plants on what he calls my 
plan, and that is the matter of climate. Where the growers that 
he has named live, the summer is not only much more hot than it 
is here, but comes a fortnight sooner and stays a fortnight longer. 
Both systems may be wrong if the withholding be done in the 
south and the gorging in the north. Both may be right if 
unlimited supplies be given in the south, and only limited 
quantities be given where the sun’s rays are fewer, feebler, and 
of shorter duration. 
“ J. A. W.” would like to see my wood now and my blooms in 
summer. That would give him little information. But if he 
could compare my sparely fed wood now with the well-fed wood 
of my neighbours’ bushes, and could compare my Roses in summer 
with those grown under precisely the same conditions except 
as regards manuring, I think he would become a convert. On the 
other hand, were we both transported five hundred miles further 
south, I doubt not my neighbours could show better results, if, 
indeed, I still pursued my present method. 
The fact is, I did not write for your correspondent or the 
eminent growers he names, but for those whose experience in 
unfavourable localities may have been something similar to my 
