November 3, 1881. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 397 
Peaches may require glass, the objection has no force as applied 
to Pears. Where does he live ? Did he never hear of Pears 
failing on walls because of bad weather? We do wish the 
objection had no force. It must be a favoured spot indeed 
where Pears always crop well, and never fail to bring the crop 
to perfection. 
Mr. David Thomson of Drumlanrig, and we can quote no higher 
authority, not long ago published the difference in price between 
a good new wall and a new orchard house of equal extent. The 
difference was not much. The difference in results secured by 
that eminent cultivator was very great. Instead of the pre¬ 
carious chances of open walls, there is the certainty of fine crops 
under glass. Instead of not always the best fruit and little 
of it, there is to be placed fruit so much better as to be scarcely 
recognisable, and abundance. Instead of much outlay (for a great 
extent of wall) and little returns, there is the smaller outlay (for 
a comparatively small amount of orchard house) and certain and 
liberal returns. 
We advise your readers to “ seriously consider ” if the time has 
not now arrived for the substitution of orchard houses for walls ; 
of uncertain returns for certain ones ; of the very finest fruit 
possible for comparatively inferior. At all events we ask them 
to consider whether this is the time to return to expensive methods 
which will undoubtedly be overthrown. We live in times when 
things must be made “to pay.” Handsome wall trees in the old 
perfection style never did, and will not now. Pears must be 
Fig. G6.— The disease of cucumber ROOTS, ENLARGED 160 DIAMETERS. 
produced quickly, of fine quality, and in quantities to pay interest 
on the capital and labour. This is the state of matters generally. 
Of course if expense is nothing, any style fancy may dictate may 
be adopted. It is, however, worth considering if handsome trees 
cannot be grown on the newer systems. Your correspondent is 
hardly consistent on this point. He admits that cordons may be 
so trained as to be as handsome as ever trees trained on the old 
system could be, and then begins again to sigh for the old ones. 
Sentiment in this matter should be laid aside, and when your 
correspondent does that we fear even he will have little to say for 
the trees of fifty years ago.—A. H.?H. 
THE DISEASE OF CUCUMBER ROOTS. * 
I have enclosed a Cucumber root for your inspection. If you 
can give me any information, through the medium of the Journal 
of Horticulture, as to the cause of the roots clubbing, I should be 
greatly obliged. I took charge of my present situation on March 
25th last, and among the houses here there is a Cucumber house 
36 feet long. 12 feet wide, with six rows of 4-inch pipes for top 
heat, independent of bottom heat. When I took charge there 
were a few old Cucumber plants in the house all clubbed like the 
specimen sent. I cleared them all out, cleaned the house tho¬ 
roughly, raised a good stock of Cucumber and Melon plants, all 
of which grew well until they commenced bearing, then the roots 
began to go the same as the specimen sent. When each Cucumber 
plant bad borne about six fruits I had to replace it, and so on all 
through the summer. The Melons went on all right until the 
fruit was as large as an Orange, when most of the fruits withered 
on the plants, and the roots assumed the appearance of the speci¬ 
men. The soil I use is good fibry turf and old hotbed manure. 
The water that supplies the gardens is a large pond fed by rain 
water and drains from the land. On the 20th July I made my last 
sowing of Cucumber seed. I cleaned the house all through and 
filled it with new soil, and planted fifteen of the strongest of the 
seedlings, which grew well until a fortnight a o, when I began 
