THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, November 1, 1859. 
65 
the plants on the stage ; and just behind these plants is 
the hottest part of the house, while the pots and plants 
all over the front and end stages are as cool as a Cucumber. 
Nothing so simple could be contrived, or even thought of, 
nor of so much practical use, where half the world might 
pass and not know better than that danger or no danger 
could happen in such cases. 
But, about the frosted Grapes and the Bornological. 
The Captain’s Grapes are sure to be at the Meeting on 
the 27th ; but my love of experiments would not bear to 
have one of the bunches covered or taken in from the 
frost. The question is still undecided whether I shall 
send any or not. If I do, it will be more to let the 
Society know that 12° of frost do not hurt the flavour or 
appearance, if the Grapes are in the dry, in the smallest 
degree ; but a heavy rain, day and night, coming on the 
heels of the frost, washed off the bloom completely. For, 
as the Grapes have been already judged, and I have owned 
the judgment to be according to fact and merits, no more i 
can be done in the matter this season. Next year, if all 
be well, I shall put up for White Grapes ; and as black is 
not white, I do hereby challenge all England, the whole 
of Ireland, and the south-west of Scotland to try a tilt 
against me before the British Bornological Society at their 
first October meeting : and if any sea-captain or land- 
manager will beat me in White Grapes grown out of 
doors without “ tricks,” I must turn over another leaf, 
make better borders, and grow nothing on them but the 
Vines themselves. It was my confidence in my practical 
powers that brought me to my knees, and nothing else; 
but this, the first instance of my ever yielding the reins 
to a rival, may do more good for out-door Grapes and for 
the British Bornological Society than all my powers of 
practice put together in a lower part of the field. 
The next question will be, How, or by what means, 
are we, the hardy Grape growers, without tricks to 
guard our walls from flies, frosts, and foul weather late 
in the autumn? Captain Hopkins w r ith his nautical ex¬ 
perience and scientific knowledge of the weather, keeps 
the best glasses constantly in use, for guidance, the best 
registering thermometers, the truest barometers, and 
the most recent improvement on the sympesometer, an 
instrument which was invented in Edinburgh about the 
time of the Burke murders (1828), to foretell more true 
than the barometer such storms and sudden changes of 
weather, as the late change from summer to widwinter, 
in a few hours. With these, and a good practical eye to 
windward, he has always prepared for any change of 
weather. Old gardeners are generally good judges of 
the weather ; and I judge that Grape Vines on a west 
wall, like mine, arc hardly on an equal footing with those 
on a south wall, by being more safe under glass all the 
winter, as my White Grapes must be in future. Another 
thing will be against them if it be an early spring—they 
will break into leaf before they can be trained in the 
upright position, and the glass will not be left over them 
one clay longer than the Geraniums can do without it, for 
they pay for their keep and mine too ; while the Grapes 
are merely on trial and for amusement, and I must take 
them down, prune them, and train the shoots for next 
year on the four feet of the wall, which is the back of 
my Geranium-pit, and where I grow half-hardy bulbs. 
When I recommended such another pit across the end 
of a house, at p. 48, I did not take it into the account 
that Vines, or other fruit trees, or ornamental climbers, 
might be growing against that end of the house, or any 
of the sides of a house, that might be so used for winter 
store, and not be seen or thought of in summer. But it 
matters not; covered with trees or climbers, it will do 
just as well a3 bare bricks, open stone, or stucco walls. 
Fix upon a course of bricks anywhere from three to 
five feet out of the ground, according to the length of 
your spare lights, keep to that course in putting in the 
wooden plugs, and put them in a yard apart, more or less. 
As the cross course of headers come in, all the plugs 
should be in the cross course, and the top of them rang¬ 
ing in the horizontal course. The plugs are of inch stuff, 
Oak or best red deal, wedged at the end and two inches 
wide. Cut out the mortar with a cold chisel to let in the 
wedge-end of the plug, and let the other end stand out 
from the wall, as much as to clear the stems and branches 
of the trained plants on it, and no more ; then nail the 
back rail to the ends of the plugs, and a “coping” over 
the rail, and the back end of the lights can be nailed on ; 
and the space between the back of this coping and the 
top of the rail and between the shoots, is to be stuffed 
with moss or straw, and the whole may be removed in 
May for the summer. That is just how my Vine-border 
for the white Grapes is to be a winter pit for half-hardy 
plants, for keeping Geraniums, and for Vines and cut¬ 
tings in summer. Cuttings cannot much hurt the Vines, 
and bulbs and Cyclamens will do them no harm. My 
labour will be as nothing compared with that by having 
I so many plants in pots to look after. The strain on fixed 
lights will be trifling, and no mode of giving air is so 
good as that by moveable cappings between each pair of 
lights. I would much prefer that way for orchard-houses, 
after seeing what Sir Joseph Baxton has done in his own 
garden at Sydenham. Any of his new cheap houses 
might be removed in one day from one part of the garden 
to any other part, by any two men who could turn a 
thumb-screw. His latest and best plan is a six-inch 
opening from top to bottom, between each pair of lights, 
and that opening is capped with a single row of glass up 
the centre, and working on hook-and-eye hinges for 
giving air. The bottom of his sashes reaches the ground ; 
the legs of the sashes, so to speak, are two inches longer 
than the usual run, and that is for them to rest against 
the side of a gutter of the form of the letter V, the 
.bottom of the light resting on the near-side of that gutter. 
The gutter is of the length of the house, with a little 
incline to one end to let off the w r ater; and the way the 
gutter itself is fixed to the ground, or rather on the 
ground, does away with all disputes about fixtures be¬ 
tween landlord and tenant. Cross blocks of wood about 
eighteen inches long are first fixed to the ground, and 
on these the gutter rests, and is held fast by “ cradles,” 
as the rails are fixed to the sleepers on railroads. 
Then, let the worst come to the worst, the Lord High 
Chancellor himself could claim no more, as a landlord, 
than the cross blocks aforesaid ; and a span-roofed house 
of any length is thus set as firm as the Southwestern 
Railway itself, without a single truss, stay-bar, plate- 
ridge, or anything. Such a house may stand the first 
year at an angle of 45°, the next it may be set at 30°, and 
for the next fourteen years it may go up or down one 
degree, or not, as you please. My border-pit represents 
one side of such a house on the smallest scale, and with a 
slight difference as to a fix. Any quantity of spare lights 
could be put up against any wall for temporary use in the 
same way, or they could be set in pairs against one 
another, with two thumb-screws at the two upper corners 
to hold them fast; and if their footing is sufficiently 
secure, be it a gutter or a sleeper, the two will stand any 
wind. Then the next pair up in the same style, and two, 
three, or four up to six inches apart, and that apart to be 
covered with a wooden or glass coping, and hinged, hook- 
and-eye way, on one side, outside, and fastened with a 
hook and staple on the inside to the opposite light; it will 
brace the two pairs of lights together, and when all the 
pairs are up, nail a coping, or narrow capping, along all 
the tops and the job is as complete as possible. 
One of Sir Joseph Baxton’s orchard-houses was filled, 
at the end of last March, just as Mr. Errington and Mr. 
Fish would do it, each of them for “his own self,” and 
every inch of the roof on both sides was full of bearing 
wood last September. A row of trained dwarf Beach trees 
planted along each side at the bottom, and another row 
of “ riders,” or tall standards, also trained to fill the 
upper half of the roof. A good crop, in pots, the first 
