APRIL. 
77 
Inside the pits a lot of rough wood, bushes, evergreen prunings, or any 
kind of comeatable refuse is placed, and firmly trodden together to the height 
of 2 feet or more, according to circumstances. On this is placed the plunging 
materials ; leaves are used here for that purpose, the space left between the 
pits for lining, the bottom of which is also covered or filled-in 2 feet or more 
with the same kind of material placed over it. In the course of the year 
every kind of refuse is here carted—all the clearance of the flower garden, 
short grass, sweepings, leaves, hedge-trimmings, shavings from the carpenter’s 
shop, stable litter, &c. In order to keep it filled up to the summit, as it 
ferments, sinks, and decays, it gets turned up altogether occasionally. Thus 
it affords at all times and seasons a pretty uniform heat, which can be regulated 
by the application of air. The plants luxuriate and grow like weeds in those 
structures; the wood affords a free circulation of heat, and prevents too much 
bottom heat or moisture, and by keeping the linings filled up to the summit, 
the heat from it is like to that of the sun or hot pipes running round ; and 
although it affords abundance of the kind of humidity the plants delight in, 
they never suffer too much from a superabundance. 
Care is always taken, or a provision made every year at the fall of the leaf 
and at the clearing up of the flower garden, to provide or muster a good heap 
in order to be ready to fill up, as at this season we cart out on the farm all the 
decayed portion of this yearly accumulation, and a pretty large heap of 
valuable manure it amounts to for root and other vegetable-growing. If a 
new post or any other repairs are necessary, they are done as before with 
rough boards or poles filled up and trodden-in to the summit with the material 
before described, thus making it secure for the winter months. We do not 
use mats for covering, but light wooden frames, the width of the lights, in two 
lengths neatly thatched, which are put on and taken off both from back and 
front of the pits during the coldest part of the winter, and stood up at the end 
on an open stage and rail to rest against. This keeps them always pleasant 
to handle, and they answer the purpose much better than mats on account of 
a cavity between them and the lights, which affords a circulation of air and 
prevents the plants from ever becoming too wet with humidity, and never get 
blown off by wind. Early in the spring those covering-frames, being all of 
one length and breadth, are turned to a very useful account for covering home¬ 
made temporary pits and for hardening-off the thousands of flower-garden 
plants. 
Bicton. James Barnes. 
THE CORDON OR LINEAR SYSTEM OF TRAINING FRUIT 
TREES. 
This system of fruit-tree culture is of remarkable simplicity, and consists 
in utilising the surface of walls and espaliers with much less loss of time and 
in obtaining from the trees their maximum production of fruit much sooner, 
without abridging their existence, than the system hitherto followed. 
This new form, which was first applied to the Pear in 1852, and since 
to nearly all other fruit trees and shrubs—the Cherry, Peach, Apricot, Plums, 
Currants, Gooseberries, &c.—is known in France as the “ cordon oblique” and 
“cordon vertical,” and is fully described in Professor Dubrieul’s “ Traite 
d’Arboriculture.” The former, w r hich we shall call the oblique linear, is only 
now adopted where the walls or espaliers do not attain a height of at least 
11 feet (nor must they be lower than 8 feet), the vertical linear requiring at 
least that height of w'all while applicable to any height beyond that, The 
