88 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, November 13, 1860. 
sure that you did heat the border artificially this cold season ? 
Because if you did, and kept the rains off, we do not think the 
Grapes ought to hare been so bad. However, the south exposure 
is best. Two small Arnott’s brick stoves, or two small iron 
ones, with a smoke-pipe in either case, would make such a house 
safe. Could you get deep enough easily, we would sink a furnace 
at one end, and take a six-inch flue along beneath your path¬ 
way. The top of the flue would form the top of the pathway.] 
OECHAED-HOUSES. 
I have read my friend Pearson’s article on these structures, 
and feel that, as your readers may be misled in some trifling 
particulars, 1 ought to say a few words by way of correction. 
But first 1 must protest against his quoting in your columns the 
gossip in very common language of inexperienced gardeners. 
l'irst as to the assertion that a “wooden house” is only a 
“ glared shed.” I can only invite any of your readers to look at 
my improved houses, with their sides partly glass and partly 
three-quarter-inch boards, and then judge if a house with brick 
walls tor its sides has not equal, or, perhaps, stronger claims to 
be called a “ glazed shed.” One house in particular, which I 
think Mr. Pearson has not seen, has not a brick in it, and yet I 
have no hesitation in saying it is one of the lightest, best venti¬ 
lated, and best built orchard-houses in existence. It is 100 feet 
long, 24 feet wide, and 12 feet high in the centre. The roof is 
supported by two rows of light one-and-a-half-inch iron pillars, 
fixed to a light iron bar let into the rafters, and kept together by 
light, iron, transverse rods. On each side is a row of fixed glass 
18 inches deep ; and under the glass on each side a venti ating 
shutter 18 inches deep on hinges. This house is remarkably well 
built, and yet cost under £140. There are no brick borders 
inside. The surface is quite flat, but divided into three borders 
one on each side and one in the centre. The effect when these 
borders are filled with trees is perfectly delightful, and far 
superior to any orchard-house I have yet seen; and although 
not a brick has been used in it, except in fixing the iron pillars 
in the ground, it has no resemblance to a “glass-roofed shed.” 
There is not a word to say in objection to Mr. Pearson’s 
twenty-feet span-roofed houses with brick walls : they are only 
more expensive and not so cheaply ventilated as houses with 
posts. Iron posts let into pieces of stone underground might be 
employed with excellent effects. The great end seems to me to 
be lightness with strength. John Bull is rather too fond of 
stability 7 , which often seriously interferes with cost and utility. 
It should also be recollected that any hedge carpenter can put 
up a house with posts and a fixed roof; while to make swinging 
sashes a regular, good, and expensive workman must be em¬ 
ployed. 
Mr. Pearson forgets that a house 40 feet by 20 feet, costing 
£66, is often far beyond the means of the poor amateur, who can 
only afford £20, or even less, and who must be rejoiced to find 
that he can build a span-roofed house with posts, 14 feet wide, 
glazed on each side with the ventilating shutter under the glass 
lor 10s. or 12s. per lineal foot. I have built a house ot this 
description (and a charming house it is, in which I have grown 
all my large fruiting trees for three years), 100 feet long for £50 ; 
and I believe that any one buying their rafters and boards from 
the steam saw mills may do the same. 
Silly people, who pout up badly built, cold houses in cold 
districts, should sutler for their folly. I have in the “ Orchard- 
house,” in the last two or three editions, mentioned that kan-to 
houses with brick walls are to be preferred for most places, owing 
to the dry heat being stored up and given out slowly by the brick 
wall at the back. No one able to read would ever think of 
keephng bedding plants in an orchard-house. 
Pears, as I know from the experience of several friends, can be 
grown in the greatest perfection in orchard-houses ; but in the 
south they should be placed out of doors in July and August, to 
give them piquancy of flavour. In the north this, I should 
think, might also be effected by merely placing the trees in a 
warm exposure, or near a wall with a southern aspect. One of 
my friends asserts that this is not necessary, and that his Pears 
are always first-rate, yet kept under glass. He is, however, a 
clever, observant man, who attends to his trees with his own 
hands and mind. The latter, I fear, is a very rare occurrence 
among orchard-house cultivators. 
Plums, I have reason to know, are a most desirable production 
of the orchard-house. I have rarely eaten any fruit to be com¬ 
pared with some Transparent Gage Plums gathered from my 
trees in pots last September. Coe’s Golden Drop Plums and 
other kinds of Green Gages were all of the highest excellence. 
This I imputed to the summer being wet and to their ripening 
slowly, which has much more to do with the flavour of fruit than 
we are aware of, and about which a chapter might be written. 
It was a knowledge of this that from the first prompted me to 
recommend orchard-house Plums to be placed in the open air to 
ripen their fruit. 
Mr. Pearson’s cultural directions are all good. He errs, 
however, in his caution about ramming down the soil. If the 
loam is turfy and inclined to be light, the compost cannot 
be rammed in too firmly. Fumigation while the trees are in 
bloom and infested with aphides is better than touching them 
with a brush. A frost severe enough to penetrate a fourteen-feet 
span-roofed house when the trees are in bloom is rare. An iron 
pan made in the form a dripp)ing-pan, with four or five small 
holes in the centre for the draught, and filled with six or eight 
quarts of charcoal, will burn from 9 P.M. to 6 A.M., or there¬ 
abouts, and keep out frost-mischief most efficiently. In some 
seasons this is never required ; in others not more on the average 
than twice—so transient are these late spuing frosts. 
We are at present quite ignorant of what a Peach tree in a pot 
can do. Twenty-five fruit are not enough for any tree in a 
pot. We shall in a very few years have trees in twenty or 
twenty-four-incli pots, with stems as big as one’s arm, and 
capable of bearing from seven to ten dozen. And why not ? 
Roots growing through do not stop the drainage holes, as 
stated by Mr. Pearson. My old trees have been ten years in the 
same pots, the holes are as open as ever, and the trees in perfect 
health. Strong manure water is a dangerous fluid, and has been 
the death of thousands of trees. It is better practice to place 
some strong manurial matter on the surface, and allow it to go 
to the roots in Nature’s way—by gentle subsidence. 
I have written this article merely to correct, to a small extent, 
some little fallacies of my friend Pearson, who is, like myself, 
quite inclined to “ go a-head.”—T. R. 
EAETHENWAEE PIPES INSTEAD OE IEON 
PIPES POE HOT-WATEE HEATING. 
I have laid down about 600 feet of glazed earthenware piping 
for hot water, and am laying down more instead of iron piping, 
and am very well satisfied with its performance. The cost is 
fully two-thirds less than iron, and more easily fixed, which are 
both very great considerations for amateurs. A small boiler and 
glazed earthenware pipes would, I am quite sure, cost very little 
more than flues, and would, in my estimation, be far more 
acceptable to hundreds of amateurs than flues. I am but an 
amateur myself, and speak from experience. 
If you think there is anything new in it, or the particulars 
would be acceptable toyour numerous readers and correspondents, 
I shall be very happy to furnish them.—G. Diahont, The Lodge , 
Flixton, near Manchester. [Pray do.—E ds. C. G.] 
POECING. 
In writing a few simple essays on this subject, it is necessary, 
first of all, to give a clear idea of what is meant by the term. It 
is often used as nearly synonymous with “ accelerating ” vegetable 
growth. We shall confine this latter word to the forwarding to 
perfection at an earlier period than usual of vegetables, fruit, and 
flowers by means of walls, fences, and other protection from 
cold; full exposure to the sun on south borders and south 
sloping banks ; and the extra assistance that can be given to 
them in such cases by hand-lights, glass frames, glass-covered 
pits, and glass-covered walls, or houses covered with glass, the 
acceleration depending entirely on shelter and the stored-up 
accumulated heat from the sun’s rays. By varying these means 
we can prolong the season of garden produce, by retarding them 
in growth or ripening. 
On the other hand, we shall confine the term “ forcing ” to 
cases where, over and above, any or all these means being 
brought into operation, there shall also be the addition of 
artificial heat; whether that heat be procured by fermenting, 
decomposing, animal, or vegetable matter, or from the com¬ 
bustion of any kind of fuel, heating a furnace, a flue, or 
a liot-water apparatus. Considered in this aspect, Cucumbers 
