In the kitchen-garden, and also in a large garden, which may be called a nursery, hardy and house plants of various kinds are bringing forward for the terrace gardens and conservatories now forming at Harlaxton new Manor; and for stocking the indigenous woods there. There is also an excellent collection of grapes, and the manner in which these are cultivated by Mr. Wade the gardener, particularly in one house, having a pit for pines or other plants, is new, and well deserving of imitation. The back wall of this house is flued, and the space allotted for the back alley is given to the vines as a border for their roots. If the pine-pit walls had been thrown upon arches, a greater increase of space for the extension of their roots would of course have been available. The circumstance of root and branch being thus out of the reach of the atmospheric changes belonging to the early months of the year is very important to early forcing, and the back wall having a flue running very contiguous to these roots places the climate, and the period of commencing their growth, completely in the power of the cultivator. It is only in such a situation that the delicate and perfumed sorts, such as Purple White Constantia and the Grizzly Frontignan, perfect and mature their growth and ripen their fruit. The mode adopted at the Royal Gardens at Kensington, as detailed in some of the early volumes of this Magazine, of constructing the top sashes of the roof of a size exactly to fill up the space and height from the back pit wall up to the roof of the house, is a very great and ingenious improvement; for by this means the back wall crop can be made to have a winter, or rather state of rest, and the main body of the house still kept for its usual purposes; the back alley being alone detached from it, and exposed during the latest summer months to the open air. This forms the arrangement for the first crop of grapes. The second, or intermediate, crop is obtained by allotting the space for the front alley as a border for the vines, so that the roots are here again never submitted to atmospheric changes; but, as there is no flue which can be said to be sufficiently near to this border to lend to it an increased state of heat, it has been found that the afore-named tender sorts, with a very luxuriant growth, and great vigour and size of bunch, will never ripen on this border, although they do so very successfully in the same house on the back wall, where there is a flue worked with a very gentle fire. The Hamburg, Sweetwater, and Muscat have ripened in that situation. These vines are trained to the rafters. The third crop is derived from the border out of doors, in the usual way, and the vines are trained to the rafters. The succession is obtained by wintering them along the front uprights of the house, and placing them between two walls or screens of glass. They are, by this glass chamber, if we may so call it, never exposed to the entire rigour of the winter, and are introduced into the house to their rafters at the option of the gardener, or as late as their tendency to break their buds admits of. This arrangement utilises as much as possible the area both of glass and ground, does not destroy the facilities of circulation, or of cultivating pines in the pit, admits of the cultivation of a greater variety of the most esteemed sorts, and obtains an immense power of succession. The following are the kinds of grapes grown: - Purple Constantia, White Constantia, Grizzly Frontignan, Muscat of Alexandria, Stillwell's Sweetwater, West's St. Peter, Black Damascus, Black Tripoli, Black Hamburg, White Portugal, Syrian. In the plant stoves, palms of various kinds, dracï¾µnas, musas, bamboos, and various fragrant-flowered climbers, are bringing forward in pots and tubs for the conservatory at the new Manor House. An experiment has been tried in one of these houses by reversing the position of the sash-bar, so that the rabbet is on the under side, and the insertion of the panes is made from that side instead of from the outside, as in the usual manner. The advantage of this mode is, that the putty is not exposed to the weather, but sufficient time has not yet elapsed to determine its value. The difficulty that appears to be most likely to establish itself respecting the reverse glazing is, that of the execution of it, and the repair, supposing that the lights are not movable but fixed. In the first instance, it is feared that the pane cannot be made to retain its position, but will fall, or at least move slightly from its place, from its own weight, before the putty is sufficiently set or hardened to retain it. In repairing, the workman is not so conveniently placed; he is like a painter of ceilings, and ought to be laid on his back. Probably Mr. Paxton's mode of having a groove in the sash-bar, as hereinafter described, may ultimately be found preferable.
