486 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
March 27. 
was,in all probability, introduced by Bobart, a German, 
the first curator of that garden. 
Such rude modes of beating being so pertinaciously 
clung to is the more extraordinary, because other and 
far superior modes of beating were suggested, and even 
practised at the time. Turning to the second volume of 
The Garden of Eden , we find that a near approach was 
there made even to beating by steam. At page 17 
begins this passage— 
“ And for the keeping of any flowers or plants abroad, as 
also of these seeds thus sown within doors, or any other pots 
of flowers, or dwarf-trees in a temperate heat, with small 
charge, you may perform the same by hanging a cover of tin 
or other metal over the vessel wherein you boil your beef, or 
drive your buck (wasking), which having a pipe in the top, and 
being made in the fashion of a funnel, may be conveyed into 
what place of your orchard or garden you shall think meet; 
which room, if it were so made, as that at your pleasure it 
may become either close or open, you may keep it in the 
nature of a stove in the night season, or in any other cold 
weather, and in the summer time you may use the benefit of 
the sunbeams, to comfort and cherish your plants or seeds. 
And this way, if I he not deceived, you may have both 
Orange, Lemons, Pomgrannet-Trees, yea, peradventure, Colo- 
quintida, and Pepper Trees, and such like ; the sides of this 
room, if you think good, may he plastered, and the top 
thereof may be covered with some streined canvas to take 
away at your pleasure. Queere, if it be best to let the pipe 
of lead to breath out at the end only, or else at divers small 
vents which may be made in that part of the pipe which 
passeth alongst the stove.” 
Nearly half a century elapsed, however, before the 
general introduction of forcing houses gave to our science 
a new feature. Greenhouses were in use in the 17th 
century, but. no regular structures roofed with glass, 
and artificially heated, existed until the early part of 
the one succeeding. Though a Pine-apple bad been 
presented by bis gardener to Charles the II. it is 
certain that they were only successfully cultivated 
here about 1723, by Mr. Henry Talende, gardener to 
Sir Matthew Decker, at Richmond; Mr. Loudon gives 
the date as 1719. Mr. Bradley says that Mr. Talende 
having at length succeeded in ripening them, and 
rendered their culture “ easy and intelligible,” be hopes 
Ananas may flourish for the future in many of our 
English Gardens. That, forcing was rare, and but 
of late introduction, is further proved by Mr. Lawrence, 
who in 1718 observes that he bad heard that the Duke 
of Rutland, at Belvoir, in Lincolnshire, hastened his 
Grapes by having fires burning from Lady day to 
Michaelmas behind his sloped walls, a report to which 
be evidently does not give implicit credence, but which 
“ it is easy to conceive.” That such, however, was the 
fact, is confirmed by Switzer, who further adds, in 1724, 
that they were oovered with glass. The walls were 
erected, he says, at the suggestion of Mr. Facio. 
The walls failing in their anticipated effect were 
covered with glass, and thus led to the first erection 
of a regular forcing structure of which we have an 
account. 
Switzer, the first practical writer on English garden¬ 
ing, thus traces the progress of the structure :— 
“ In one of the preceding chapters I have given an 
account of the method of building walls, and of the success 
of sloping, which I mention here by way of introduction; 
because it has led the world to the following improvement 
of glassing and forcing Grapes, which was never done to 
perfection in any place as it is upon some of the great slopes 
of that elevated and noble situation of Belvoir Castle, 
belonging to that ancient and truly great family of the 
Mannerses, Dukes of Rutland. 
“ The first building of these sloping walls was at the 
instigation, and I believe by the direction of the author of a 
treatise in large quarto, of Fruit-walls Improved, ( N. Facio 
Duilhier.) That gentleman being at that time tutor to the 
then Marquis of Tavistock, afterwards Duke of Bedford, to 
whom it was dedicated; hut notwithstanding the plausible 
shew made by that theorist, by which one would have thought 
that that accelerating would be more certainly performed; 
yet the gardeners found it did not do when reduced to 
practice, how well soever it appeared in the theory. 
“ This was the occasion that the late Duke of Rutland 
undermined this sloping wall, (which fell not because it 
rested on the Bank ;) which being done, he caused a funnel 
of brick to be made behind the wall, and as it were under 
the border, to convey heat from end to end of the wall; this 
being done, he ripped up several parts in the wall at about 
ten foot asunder, (as I remember) which were earned 
forwards and backwards in order to heat the wall; led there¬ 
to, from what he had observed at the back of a kitchen 
chimney, wherein heat was plainly discovered to be the 
principal agent in this affair. After this expense, which 1 
cannot say was great, his Grace was resolved to be sure, and 
therefore he glassed them all before as you do stoves, which 
penned in the heat to a great degree, and from this they had 
presently good success. 
“ It was my good fortune to come that way during some 
amendment that was making to this place, and finding that 
there were abundance of passages on the back of the wall, 
whereby I judged the heat evaporated very much, unless the 
fires were very strong ; I took the opportunity to acquaint 
his grace with my sentiments, that as the root was the 
primnm mobile of vegetation, and the grand source from 
whence the tree drew all its juices, I humbly conceived, that 
heating that part had been too little considered, and the 
heating the boughs too much; this occasioned a new amend¬ 
ment, and that was to shut many of the funnels on the back 
of the wall, and lay the greatest stress of the experiment on 
the roots, by making a larger funnel under the border, 
shutting up most of the back passages as before, and by 
often renewing the borders with fresh earth, and watering- 
them well, which has answered beyond expectation, and has 
confirmed me in the opinion I was always in : that the fire 
in a kitchen chimney lying low, and being generally under 
the roots, is the greatest occasion of the maturity and acce¬ 
leration of fruit, especially Grapes, rather than any adven¬ 
titious heat that comes to the houghs. 
“ But be that as it will, I am satisfied by a noble and most 
ingenious observer of vegetable nature, that this is the all 
in all; for which reason he has made few or no back funnels 
to his sloping walls. And I must add one thing more which 
his Grace told me, and that is, that he. is now trying of Figs, 
and does not doubt but to bring them to as great perfection 
as the Grapes. 
“ It is of great use that you put rubbish behind the walls, 
to prevent it from being damp, which it would otherwise be 
on all clayey soils. 
“ The expense of keeping artificial heat being not great, 
nor the trouble much, you must begin making fires about 
the beginning or middle of January, which will set the Vine 
to work about the beginning, or middle of February. The 
sun succeeds to second this artificial heat, which may be 
lessened as it increases its natural vigour, and the glasses 
may be opened on all fine sunshiny mornings, and remain, 
in case the weather is fine, till towards night; hut the 
glasses must be shut down before the sun is gone off an 
hour or two, which retains the heat more strongly within the 
glass-case. 
N. B.—“ Peaches, Nectarines, and Apricots do not love to be 
forced, at least the fruit is very seldom good ; for being na¬ 
turally of a watery taste, and there being much occasion to 
keep the glasses close, the fruit is always rendered flat and 
insipid. This is not pure speculation, hut the result of the 
practice that I have observed in the glass-houses at Bromp- 
ton Park. On the contrary, the Vine is endued with that 
