House and Garden 
CLIPPING OF THK YOUNG GRAPHS TO INSURE PERFECT BUNCHES 
under their 250 S(|uare metres of glass at Hampton 
Court. 
About 1780 some French vegetable gardeners, 
among others Debille, Ebrard, Fournier and Val- 
lette, commenced to sell “out of season” delicacies 
on quite an extensive scale. 
Eight years later DecouHe forced beans and peas. 
Towards the year 1800, the Quentin Brothers and 
Mane forced asparagus. Besnard, on the other 
hand, made a specialty of cauliflowers grown before 
the season. Finally the invention of the “thermo¬ 
siphon” by Bonnemain and, above all, its applica¬ 
tion to the heating of hothouses by Gautier from 
1830 gave vigorous impulse to that curious industry. 
However the commercial exploitation of hothouse 
methods, with their fairy gardens where fruits and 
flowers flourished at the same time, did not become 
extensive in France until some fifteen years later. 
The most important establishments of this kind 
were founded flrst in the provinces of Aisne and Nord 
and more recently they have created new' ones in the 
suburbs of Paris. We shall visit together one of these 
monster aggregations of hothouses, w here are growui, 
by scientihc means, beautiful bunches of grapes, big 
cherries, luscious peaches of exquisite flavor or excel¬ 
lent currants, any time from February to June. 
In the hothouses of the Seine situated at Nan- 
terre, of the extent of which an idea may be had 
78 
from the accompanying illustrations, they devote 
themselves almost exclusively to cultivating grapes 
and peaches for the table. 
A fact worthy of special notice is that they apply 
themselves at times as much to retarding the ripening 
of vegetation as to forcing it, so that during the period 
that the sales are remunerative, fruits are not want- 
iiif 
This establishment consists of ninety hothouses 
tw'enty metres in length by ten metres in width and 
about three metres in height, some heated by steam 
others by means of a circulating system of smoke. 
Each one of them consists of a frame work of iron, 
with panes of “ cathedral glass. ” 
Along the summit are windows that can be raised 
for the purpose of ventilation. 
Between the lines of hothouses run deep trenches 
which in summer are filled with water, so that the air 
saturated with humidity may more quickly refresh 
the vines during the heated term. 
Each hothouse protects fifty vine-stocks besides 
six feet of Aramon Rupestris, the abundant flowering 
of wdiich furnishes the pollen to prevent the grapes 
from dropping. 
At the proper moment they proceed with the arti¬ 
ficial fecundation in the following manner. 
Eirst the workman begins by shaking the blos¬ 
somed bunches in order to throw on the ground the 
