270 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, January 20, 1857. 
In the following spring, about March, when the plants 
Show fruit, a number of the strongest are selected for the 
purpose of being turned out of the seven-inch pots, and 
finally planted, free, in a bed of peat soil, in houses, where 
they remain to ripen their fruit in the course of the season. 
The remainder, not so planted out, are fruited without 
being shifted out of the seven-inch pots. Beds of half 
dung and half leaves are prepared about March, and when 
the heat has been properly regulated the plants are 
plunged, and there in the seven-inch pots they are fruited. 
It thus appears that the plants are always in pots in 
winter. The suckers are in small pots the first winter. 
The plants are turned out into peat soil, free, during the 
first summer. All are repotted into seven-inch pots, and so 
kept during the second winter. In the second summer the 
strongest are planted out of the pots into peat soil for 
fruiting, and the remainder are fruited in the seven-inch 
pots, plunged in beds of dung and leaves. 
There is certainly no great mystery as regards this simple 
mode of procedure. But the extraordinary size of the fruits 
of those planted out in peat soil, as mentioned in the Gar¬ 
deners' Chronicle, vol. for 1856, and likewiso the present 
luxuriant and remarkably dark green foliage of the plants, 
do not appear to be sufliciently accounted for by anything 
very peculiar in the routine, although perhaps a better could 
not be adopted. The effect must be produced by some 
powerful agencies which we have not yet traced out. It 
will, therefore, be necessary to enter minutely into details 
respecting the position of the plants, and to direct attention 
to circumstances likely to influence their growth. 
The plants, as already stated, are planted out in the 
fruiting-houses in a bed of peat soil. The depth of the soil 
is about fourteen inches, placed on a wooden flooring, con¬ 
sisting of boards laid side by side, and supported by iron bars. 
The arrangement of the fruiting - houses will be best 
understood by a plan and sections, w'hich I have the satis¬ 
faction of being enabled not ouly to refer to as published in 
the Gardeners' Chronicle, 1846, p. 820, but to introduce. 
There are four fruiting-houses, which are heated with hot 
water and stable litter combined ; the stable litter for bottom- 
heat, and the hot water for surface-heat. 
No. 1, with eleven lights, each light four feet four inches 
wide, is the largest, of which Fig. 1 is the ground plan, and 
Figs. 2, 3, and 4 different sections of it. 
Nos. 2 and 3, with fifteen lights. They are in one line, 
and the middle light is occupied by the furnace, &c. 
No. 4, with ten lights. The whole are constructed upon 
the same plan. 
Fig. 1. 
Fig. 3. 
Fie. 1. Ground Plan of fruiting-house, No. 1 ; Figs. 2, 3, and 4, sections of it. In Fig. 3 is shown the manner in which access 
is had to the hotbed. Fig. 4 shows the entrance and the furnace, with a side view of the house. 
a, f urnace; h hot-water pipes ; c, chimney ; d, concealed pit to get at the hotbed ; e, hotbed ; /, door, which is shut up after 
the stable litter lias been removed ; g, air-holes, furnished with a cover to regulate the bottom-heat; h, bed filled with peat soil 
in which the Pine Apples are planted ; i, iron bar covered with boards to hold the peat soil; k, footpath; l , door; m, water 
cisLcrn ; n, shelf for Strawberries; o, ground line; p, iron railings for hanging the straw mattings upon, which serve to 
cover the houses. ° r ' 
Air is given to all the pits when required by lifting up the 
lights. 
The following analysis of the Meudon peat, Brmjere de 
Meudon, is stated to have been made with great care by M. 
Payen:— 
Fine sand . 62* 
Roots and vegetable remains. 20 
Humus . 16* 
Carbonate of lime.<. 08 
Matter soluble in cold water. 1*2 
1000 
The above can only be called good sandy peat with a 
mere trace of lime in the form of carbonate. The water 
employed is spring water. These substances apparently 
constitute the only source whence the plants derive their 
luxuriance ; but in this respect they so far exceed others in 
similar soil, that it is evident they must have an additional 
large supply of nourishment to that afforded by peat soil 
and water nearly pure. » 
The large stone-built vault below the beds happened to be 
empty when we were at Meudon, and we had an opportunity 
of satisfactorily examining it. The boarding overhead 
was, of course, somewhat decayed, from the action of the 
gases arising from the dung, and in various places the old 
roots of the Pine plants were hanging where they had in¬ 
sinuated themselves between the boards. When this vault 
is filled, or nearly so, with fermenting dung, an immense 
quantity of ammoniaeal and carbonic acid gases must be 
constantly generated ; and they must as constantly find 
