40 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION. —October 21, 1850. 
Manicata, is impatient of beat, and blooms better 
against a south wall when much frost is guarded against. 
The long shoots from these, or many of them, would 
bang down to the paths were it not that they festoon 
them in all directions, which festooning has a fine effect 
over a display of flowering plants, brought in irom a 
dozen new span roofed houses in the kitchen-garden. 
Mr. Davidson made another experiment by ailing the 
roof, hut then the stove climbers turned sulky, and they 
had to turn the tune to “ Auld Lang Syne.’ But Sir 
William has another experiment in view—nothing less 
than lo build a pit-like stove, eight feet wide, and not 
much higher, across the farthest end ot the conservatory, 
for growing stove climbers in a five-feet-wide bed, which 
will be two feet deep ; and, at the height of six feet from 
the bed, the top of the climbers will be introduced into 
the conservatory to run about as they list- This pit- 
stove will be hid from the inside of the conservatory by 
“frosting” the lower part of the glass, and in very 
severe winters a private door will bo lett open to let 
more heat into the conservatory from the pit. Altogether 
this will he a new feature in first-class conservatories, 
and one which will be very well worth imitating. For 
the four or five winter months such of the climbers as 
may not like to he so cold will be closely pruned, coiled, 
and brought hack into the pit, to hang there from the 
rafters till every spur and eye on them is in lull leaf 
again. 
For wreaths of cut flowers from rare stove climbers 
they are going to plant the Beaumontia and other rare- 
to-bo-seen kinds in the centre bed of a new, magnificent, 
span roofed, Calcutta-house, which is divided from an 
Australian-house only by a glass division, through which, 
near the top, these climbers, or parts of them, will be 
introduced to run over greenhouse plants; and thus, 
besides making a longer season, as it were, for each 
kind, they will first ascertain which kinds are the most 
likely to suit the new scheme for the conservatory. 
Every family of stove or greenhouse plants has a 
representative in one or the other of these two houses, 
which are each sixty feet long and twenty feet wide, 
span-roofed, and yet there is a house “ on purpose” for 
euch of the fashionable groups on the establishment; but 
my visit was too short to get at the best kinds and the 
modes of culture. One would need a whole week to go 
over the pot-plants alone. 
There are two Orchid-houses of large size full of plants 
from all parts; a house for Begonias, which looks as gay 
as a Geranium-house; a Fuchsia-house, a Balsam-house, 
with tan-beds and a span-roof. One or two seeds are 
put into a 60-pot, and the best plant is selected to re¬ 
main. The compost is near to that recommended by 
the late Mr. Knight, of Downton Castle, almost all fresh, 
turfy loam, fresh horse-droppings, peat, and foul liquid- 
manure, and a shift as soon as the roots begin to coil in 
the pot. Some of the largest plants are flowered in 
No. 2, 4, and 0-pots—enough for two men to lift on a 
barrow. A house for Gloxinias, Achimenes, and all 
low, soft plants of that description, with a walk down 
the centre, a bed on each side, with hot-water pipes 
running through troughs of water for bottom heat, and 
other pipes for the top-heat. Mr. Foggo pulled up every 
pipe and boiler left him by his predecessors, and wonders 
how Messrs. Davidson and Beaton could make both 
ends meet with their slow conches. All our boilers were 
bad or badly set, and would not yield sufficient heat, 
lie prefers Gray and Ormson’s boilers and arrangement 
to any others, and with stop-cocks and valves he seems 
really to heat as much with one boiler as Mr. Weeks 
himself. 
Ail the Melons are grown in a house on purpose for 
them, and in several divisions the plants are trained up 
under the glass. Cucumbers the same all the year round. 
Another low house is for growing Vines in pots. Mr. 
Niven now, and for many years in Ireland, was the 
first grower of Vines in pots in a regular house by 
themselves. I saw his first crop just when 1 began | 
to think about gardening. From that day to this 
1 did not see such “rods” as Mr. Foggo had in this 
house. Anybody may fruit Vines in almost any kind ; 
of house or pit if he gets his rods made for him, 
or on purpose: that is the battle; but a more strange j 
cause of battling I heard on the spot — a gardener ; 
actually threatening to have Grapes on his master’s ■ 
table every week in the year, and the master protesting 
that for nine months in the year would be quite enough. 
A summer Mushroom-house and a winter Mushroom- 
house are here. The former being kept much damper, 
and the latter more dry than usual, seemed all the 
difference from our old notions; both answer well. 
A retarding-house leaning against the north wall of 
the kitchen-garden; but, from the irregularity of the 
ground, the wall is fifteen feet high on that side. The 
house may be eighteen feet wide, and from sixty to 
seventy feet long. Here you see Stanhopeas, Vandas, 
Saccolabiums, and other air-plants hanging over 
Oleanders, Scarlet Lobelias, Geraniums, Heaths, and 
all manner of mixed plants, put in here to keep them 
back for great occasions, or till there is room for them in 
the conservatory. A north house for keeping back 
tilings, if only high enough for twenty plants, is one of 
the most useful one could think of; the only secret is to 
keep the sun from them. There must be as much glass 
and light as for Heaths. If there is the least darkness 
more than the plants were accustomed to the end is 
defeated; they will either cast their blossoms or draw 
up so weak that the flowers are gone as soon as they 
are brought out. This house is heated by a flue, and 
makes a good stove-house for Myrtles and such-like 
plants during the winter. 
But the most useful house of all for a large establish¬ 
ment, or for the smallest if it could be had, is one to 
hold specimen plants in winter for standing out in the 
flower-garden in summer. One of this description, 
which was all but finished hero at the time, is the best 
of the kind 1 ever saw. It is sixty feet long, twenty- 
four feet wide, and twenty feet high, a span-roof, ami 
looking to the south ; the north half of the span is 
covered with slate and plastered inside; the south side 
is of glass; the south front is solid brickwork; and the 
north “ back wall ” is a succession of large windows 
from floor to roof with equal breadths of brickwork; each 
window opens outward; the two ends are solid brick¬ 
work, and the face of the inside wails is plastered. 
There are two tiers of shelves all round the front and 
ends, supported by brackets fastened in the wall. There 
is a “front door” and a back door, wide enough and 
high enough to let in or out specimens of the largest 
size; the floor is as for the drainage of the best Vine 
borders, thus—thirty or forty feet deep of white sand on 
the edge of a steep bank; a foot of rough stones and 
brickbats next the sand; and two or three more layers, 
each of smaller gravel than the last, but not binding 
gravel; the surface is more of the size of small shot; 
every drop from the bottom of the pots, tubs, and boxes 
will be out of sight in a moment, and no dump either. 
A complete set of four-inch hot-water pipes round the 
house is connected with a large boiler, which works 
several ranges in the rear, and, by turning a valve when 
the frost gets more than-5° to 6°, a rush of hot water soon 
makes all safe for the night. It is here that the eighteen- 
feet-high specimen Scarlet Geraniums will be wintered ; 
fifty to seventy standard and pillar Fuchsias, from 
twelve to twenty feet high, ditto; ffumeas from five to 
ten feet high the same, aud they have the best mode of 
showing them off' L ever saw. By the time a specimen 
attains full size it is as bare below as a man without a 
shoe or stocking on, or something else to his back. 1 
