172 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, December 25, 1860. 
be well beaten with the fork till it is quite firm and as solid as 
you can make it. Cover it over with a layer of rich loam < o 
keep down the steam. The plants should be raised previously, 
and should be good and strong by the time the bed is in 
order for them. Then make hills in two rows, one near the 
front and one about the centre. Let them be alternate—that is, 
the front rows should stand between the plants in the centre 
j-ow thus—• Place a stick to each plant and train 
them up to the roof; by this plan the back row will have more 
light than if they were exactly opposite the front row. Another 
year, if you manage well, you ought to cut Cucumbers on New- 
Year’s day, or even earlier, and those plants will continue 
bearing to May or June. Then you may have ready a lot of 
strong plants of Melons. Make hills for them of the strongest 
loam you can get and plant the Melon plants out, clearing away 
the Cucumbers entirely. These Melons may be trained up to the 
roof in the same way as the Cucumbers, and will yield a good 
crop in August or September. In this house you may propagate, 
in spaces, any quantity of bedding-out plants you need, in boxes 
or pans, only directly they are rooted remove them out into a 
cooler house. 
When the Melons have ripened then clear out the plants and 
dung, whitewash the walls, and wash all the woodwork, and let 
the house have all the air you can give it. It will then be ready 
for Cucumbers again when the season arrives. If this house is 
well managed and you get a fair price for its produce, it will 
reward you abundantly for your labour and care. 
No. 3 is a span-roofed house 41 feet long and 14 feet wide. 
The most profitable use to which you can put this house is to 
plant it with Peaches and Nectarines, and train them to a trellis 
on each side and meeting at the centre. You might also plant 
a Yine to every other rafter; or if the roof is in one uniform 
sheet—that is, without rafters, then plant four Vines at each 
side. These Vines will not shade the Peaches too much, and 
will give about ninety bunches of Grapes when in full bearing. 
If you adopt this plan you may obtain a good and certain cro > 
of Peaches and Nectarines by the middle of June, at which time 
they will fetch a high price in London and elsewhere. 
In this house during winter you may keep a large stock o r 
bedding-out plants on the borders, which you will find useful in 
spring, only you must get them out, when you begin to force the 
Peaches in Eebruary, into a pit or under frames where they 
can be sheltered from frost by safe covering. If there are back 
sheds to your lean-to house you might easily convert one into 
a :\Iushroom-house, which is a profitable crop if so managed as 
to come in to production from November to May. 
We trust these few hints will help you in your undertaking. 
If any further information is needed send your queries and 
we shall be glad to assist yon. 
Vines for your early house:—Black Hamburgh, Golden 
Hamburgh, and Muscat Hamburgh. 
Strawberries for forcing:—Black Prince, British Queen, 
and Keens’ Seedling. 
Peaches and Nectarines for forcing:— Nectarines —-Elruge 
and Violette Hative. Peaches —Early Admirable, Royal George, 
and Grosse Mignonne. 
Early-forcing Cucumbers : —Lord Kenyon’s Eavourite and 
Sion House. 
Melons. — Trentliam Scarlet, Beechwood, and Egyptian 
Green Elesh. 
We cannot recommend where you can obtain trees, seeds, &c. 
but any respectable firm that advertises in our pages can supply 
you.—T. A.] 
ARRANGEMENTS FOE PROPAGATING. 
I HAVE a nine-light pit—say 27 feet in length, heated by 
“ linings,” but at present without heat, and occupied with 
Cauliflower plants, Lettuce, &c., and sundry cuttings housed for 
the winter. Besides this, I have two lean-to vineries, and a 
small lean-to greenhouse, all connected, and all heated by hot 
water from one boiler. 
Please to advise me as to the best mode of propagating, taking 
into consideration my appliances, as explained above. My own 
idea is to enclose a part of' the hot-water pipes in one of the 
vineries, and place a small tank (with a perforated top) about 
four or five inches wide, over the pipes, and above that to have 
the propagating-bed, which would be—say 12 inches wide, and 
4 feet or 5 feet in length. When the heat was on for the vinery 
I should have sufficient for the propagating-bed, but at other 
times, when the vinery did not require heat, I should be in a 
difficulty. Could I have a separate apparatus, such, for in¬ 
stance, as is used in the Waltonian Case, to apply at such times as 
other sources of heat fail with me ? or would it be better to have 
a separate apparatus altogether, and so be quite independent of 
the vinery heat?—A Yorkshireman. 
[Your plan as respects the vinery will do. Wen at work it 
would do quite as well without the tank as with it. Any means 
you could use for such a purpose in a vinery, when that vinery 
was not at work, would be apt to start your Vines sooner than 
you wanted. If you have plenty of manure and labour, you 
may keep up any heat by dung alone. In your case, however, 
if there is much propagating required, and especially in winter 
and early spring, we should prefer heating a part at least of your 
brick pit either with a flue or a small boiler, with or without a 
tank. If you could manage to have two platforms, one on each 
side, and so that you could walk between them, you would find 
it more convenient. A small door would let you in and out. 
A small retort boiler, or such a one as was described by Mr. 
Allen the other week, would heat the half of such a pit, more 
especially if you still used linings also, but without allowing 
the steam to enter. You will find full directions for propagating 
in our columns, window gardening, &c. There are many modes.] 
GISHURST COMPOUND. 
Will you allow mo to thank “T. S. B.” for his kind answer 
to my query as to how he applied Gishurst, and to say that 
I much regret not being able to account for its non-success 
with him in winter dressing ? A twenty-years’ apprentice¬ 
ship as an experimentalist (though not in fruit matters), 
while it teaches caution gives at the same time confidence; so 
without anxiety, the first free half Saturday between now and 
this time next month, 150 of my dwarf trees of all sorts taken 
as they come (all of them being at rest), shall have their annual 
wash of Gishurst, eight ounces to the gallon ; and if “ T. S. B.” 
will do me the favour to inspect the trees at blossoming time, he 
will be enabled to j udge for himself as to the result. 
I am much obliged for the suggestion as to sending out Gis¬ 
hurst in cakes of definite weight. There are manufacturing 
difficulties in the way: I will again try, however, to get over 
them.— George Wilson. 
THE SCIENCE OF GARDENING. 
(.Continued from page 6.) 
THE DISEASES OF PLANTS. 
Dr. Good, the distinguished medical writer, lias remarked 
that the morbid affections to which the vegetable part of the 
creation is liable are almost as numerous as those which render 
decrepid and destroy the animal tribes. It would be difficult, 
perhaps, whatever system of nosology is followed, to place a 
finger upon a class of animal physical diseases of which a parallel 
example could not be pointed out among plants. The smut, 
which ravages our corn crops ; the mildew, which destroys our 
Peas ; the murrain of our Potatoes ; the ambury, or clubroot, 
to which our Turnips and other species of Brassica are liable; 
the shanking, or ulceration, which attacks the stalks of our 
Grapes, are ouly a few of the most commonly observed diseases 
to which the plants we cultivate are liable. 
Numerous as are the vegetable diseases, and destructive as 
they are to the interests of the cultivator, yet no subject con¬ 
nected with his art has obtained so little attention, and never 
was even trivial attention followed by benefit less important. 
The reason for this deficiency of benefit is not difficult of detection. 
Common experience teaches us that diligence and perse¬ 
verance, directed by judgment, are the essential preliminaries of 
success: and these are more particularly requisite in search¬ 
ing for the causes of the diseases and decay of vegetables, be¬ 
cause we have fewer guides, and less assistance from the vegetable 
affected, than we have from a diseased animal—fewer symptoms 
marking the commencement or seat of the evil. Yet where is 
the cultivator who ever took a fraction of the care, or paid a 
decimal of the attention to discover the cause, progress, or 
remedy of one disease, sometimes bringing destruction upon his 
harvests, as he does to detect the disorder or discover the panacea 
for some miserable pig ? 
