47 
THE COTTAGE GARDEN ER AND COUNTRY GENTLE HAN, October £3, I860. 
HEATING A GEEENHOUSE WITH SMALL 
OUTLAY. 
I hate made a span-roof house for wintering bedding-out things 
in, out of eight top greenhouse lights. Size sixteen feet by twelve 
feet. I screwed the tops of the lights together, and the bottoms 
of same rested on a sill of wood supported by four uprights. 
Between these I filled in with wood hung on hinges, which act 
as ventilators. The walk is about fourteen inches below the 
ground surface ; south end, glass ; north end, door in centre, glass 
each side ; the sides of the house about two feet high. It is well 
fitted 'with shelves from top, sides, &c., for the small bedding 
plants which will be placed in it. Fitted with shelves about three 
feet wide each side of walk, about the level of bottom of lights. 
In fact, it was made out of all old materials for cheapness ; but, 
notwithstanding, having been well painted and glazed, it is now 
a first-rate little house. How can I heat it cheaply and durably ? 
—Rtthtka. 
[If you can sink a hole in the ground at one end of your house 
some three feet and a half or four feet deep, we would make a stoke¬ 
hole there, and take a nine or twelve-inch flue right under the 
pathway, so that a good broad tile of twelve or fifteen inches 
wide would form the top of the flue, and the top of the path. 
The small chimney might be at the other end, or you might 
make the flue narrower, and return it to the same end, so as to 
have furnace and small chimney together. If you consult 
economy and durability, we believe this to be the best under the 
circumstances. Some time ago, Mr. Fish noticed a house at Mr. 
Hall’s nursery, Hitchin, so heated, and nothing could answer 
better. You would, in late numbers, see various other modes 
alluded to.] 
PE Alt TEEES AGAINST A WALL 
UNFEUITEUL. 
“ Against a wall twelve feet high, and facing the S.S.E., I have 
five Pear trees. They have been planted about ten years, and 
now cover the wall. When first planted they bore pretty well, 
but for the last four or five years they have had very little 
blossom, and that at the extreme ends of the branches. This 
year there are four Pears on the five trees. I notice the bark is 
more or less covered with a brown scale, giving it something the 
appearance of the hide of the rhinoceros. The Pears are of 
different kinds, and the subsoil is clay. What am I to do to 
make them bear ? Of course, their covering the Avail has an 
ornamental appearance ; but I would cut them doAvn if necessary. 
My trees not having any blossom led me in the spring to observe 
carefully others that were fastened to walls or buildings, and I 
could scarcely find a tree of any age that had blossom except at 
the ends of the branches. This is never the case w T ith standards; 
and I noticed w T here a tree had been neglected, and the branches 
had got away from the wall, those branches were covered with 
blossom.”—R. U. 
The chief advantage that Pear trees on a wall have over others 
planted as standards, is the greater degree of warmth they there 
receive. This advantage generally causes the fruit to come larger 
and finer in appearance, though not always superior in eating 
qualities to the smaller fruit, of kinds hardy enough to bear 
on dwarfs, pyramids, espaliers, or standards. One reason 
why such Pear trees frequently bear best on the extreme ends 
of the shoots when fastened closely to walls, is the com¬ 
parative smallness of the shoots there, and the comparative 
thinness of the spurs, which permits of the sunlight playing as 
freely upon them as upon branches standing out as you state 
from the wall, and thus having most of the advantages and dis¬ 
advantages of a standard tree. Again : as a general rule, the 
branches of Pear trees on walls are placed too thickly together— 
say six inches instead of nine, or twelve, or more; and the spurs 
on these branches are so thick, lumpy, and close, that the sun 
cannot have access to the foliage on them as on that at the 
points of the trees. Besides, the Pear is a rampant grower—in 
many kinds woi’ld make a good-sized forest tree; but when 
placed against a wall it can only expose one side out of four, and 
most likely the soil is not only richer but deeper than it would 
have been in any forest. The consequence is, .that prune, cut, 
and foreshorten as you may—and that will go a great way to 
curtail extra vigour—the richness of the soil or the depth of 
the roots will so supply an extra amount of watery sap, that it 
finds a vent for itself in a superabundance of summer shoots 
standing out from the tree ; and these, again, whilst they remain, 
keep the sun from the buds and leaves on the spins. If these 
ivere thinned out, and those left had the points nipped out, 
provided the roots were not extra deep, in a couple of years or 
so these shoots standing out from the tree would be like the 
two-year-old shoots at the points of a standard, and from that 
time and onwards might bo expected to be studded with small 
fruitful spurs, as those that appear on a standard under similar 
circumstances; but, of course, this plan when adopted deprives 
the tree against a wall of most of its peculiar advantages. 
Acting on the fact you mention, of the points of branches 
being so extra fruitful, which, besides the ideas shadowed forth 
above, woidd seem to indicate that a certain degree of youthful 
vigour in spurs was desirable, instead of having them very old, 
and hidebound, and gnarly, so that the sap could not pass freely 
through them ; and when, besides, we had reason to believe that 
the s oil was neither too rich, nor the roots too deep nor in un¬ 
suitable soil, as the summer shoots were, on the whole, rather 
short and short-jointed too, then we have adopted several plans 
for letting more light in to the tree, and also renovating gra¬ 
dually the spurs and bearing wood. 
First. We have thinned out the spurs considerably, leaving 
the youngest and best-placed buds; and when from the cuts 
fresh shoots came in summer, we nipped them in when four or 
five inches in length, cutting them close home again in winter, 
and by this means gradually renewed the spurs on the trees and 
kept them much thinner and opener than before. 
Again : if the tree was in good order, but otherwise the young 
wood every season was rather rampant, and yet the spurs were 
unfruitful and presented a gnarled appearance. In a fan-trained 
tree, where the branches were rather thick, I have removed 
every alternate branch, and from those left selected a young 
shoot every two feet that was best situated for the purpose, and 
fastened it in the open space between the branches 3 and in the 
second and third years these bore profusely. The same plan 
might be followed without cutting out branches, by removing 
most of the old spurs and tying these young shoots backward on 
the branches. If the tree is at all strong, this tying backwards 
towards the stem or roots will have a tendency to lessen rampant 
growth and make the shoots more fruitful. When a tree is 
trained horizontally, the young shoots may either be trained 
between the branches in a similar way, or the young shoots from 
the upper shoot may be brought down a foot apart and fastened 
to the next main branch. These modes will be often very suc¬ 
cessful in promoting extra fruitfulness when there is reason to 
believe that the roots are not too deep in an unfavourable subsoil, 
or in a soil that is rich to excess with organisable matter. 
If your trees are in the habit of making shoots in summer 
several feet in length, and these long-jointed and almost as soft 
and pliable as Willows, then I would come to the conclusion at 
once that a number of roots have got down into your subsoil of 
clay ; and if so, all the above means will only be palliatives for a 
time, and will do but little to remove the great cause of unfruit¬ 
fulness. Even allowing the shoots to stand out from and hang 
from the wall will only give you a better chance of obtaining 
more inferior fruit. Whilst saying this we fully admit that dis¬ 
budding and foreshortening in summer will enable the sun to do 
more with the watery juices that gorge the tree, and thus too 
lessen the vigour of mere growth, but the great cause of the evil 
will remain untouched. 
In such a case the chief remedies are either taking up and 
replanting the tree nearer the surface, or cutting all the roots in 
a senrcircle four feet from the tree, and so undermining it as to 
get at all the roots, and cut them that are running most likely 
straight down far into the clay. 
With trees at the age you mention I would not hesitate to 
adopt either of these courses. If the roofs are merely cut, stones 
and brickbats should be placed under the stump where the tap 
roots were, to prevent them growing doivnwards easily again. 
The ends of the roots should be cut clean, and some fresh light 
loam placed round them to encourage fresh rooting. This would 
be ea ;ier done than taking up the trees wholly ; but if it could 
be done at the end of October, I would r a tit or prefer the latter 
mode—cutting all tap roots, and planting the rest not more than 
nine inches deep, and taking care that the border was not dug 
too d tep afterwards. In this case a little fresh loam and leaf 
mould might be packed among the roots, which.would encourage 
fresh fibres near the surface. 
I mention this treatment for trees not planted above ten years. 
When trees have been planted twenty years or more, and get out 
of bearing from k this cause, sometimes a cutting of the tap- 
