The Lady's Country Companion; Or, How to Enjoy a Country Life RationallyLoudon, Mrs. (Jane)
General
The Lady's Country Companion; Or, How to Enjoy a Country Life Rationally
Loudon, Mrs. (Jane)
Cooking; Country life; Home economics
_Fig trees_ should never be pruned, except to remove shoots that cannot
be trained, as the fruit is produced on the young wood at the extremity
of the branches. Fig trees should be planted thirty feet apart, and
trained horizontally, their long branches being bent backwards and
forwards, in order to make them throw out side shoots for bearing
fruit, which they will generally do where the bend is made. Fig trees
require to be well supplied with water, though they will not grow if
any stagnant water be suffered to remain about the roots.
The _pomegranate_ resembles the fig tree in producing its flowers only
on the points of its shoots, and on short twigs projecting from its
trained branches. Pomegranates require a rich soil; and when it is
wished to throw them into fruit, the blossoms should be shaded during
the time of expansion, as otherwise the pollen will dry up without
fertilising the stigma.
_Grapes_ are frequently grown against a wall in the open air; and in
some cases, as, for example, by Mr. Clement Hoare, near Southampton,
with very great success. Grapes have been also produced of excellent
quality against a flued wall; that is, a hollow wall heated by means
of flues in it, as at Erskine, near Greenock; but as, in both cases,
extraordinary care is required, I would advise you only to have a
common sweet-water vine or two in your garden on the open wall, for
the purpose of using its leaves in garnishing, and to grow vines in a
vinery to produce the grapes you require for the table.
A vinery is a common hothouse or bark stove, heated with hot-water
pipes or flues, and with a pit in the centre, which is generally
filled with tan for pines. This appears a very simple and economical
arrangement, but it has one great disadvantage; namely, that the pines
require heat at a season when the vines should be in perfect repose,
unless very early crops of grapes are desired. In other cases the
centre of the vinery is planted with peach and nectarine trees for
early forcing, the branches of the trees being trained over a curved
trellis, and other peach and nectarine trees or vines, planted in
the house, being trained against a trellis at the back. The vines
for the main crop are, however, planted on the outside of the house,
in a border prepared like that for the fruit trees, but richer; and
their stems are brought into the vinery, through holes left for that
purpose in the front wall. Several compositions have been recommended
for making a compost for a vine border; but that most approved is, two
parts of turfy loam mixed with one part of very rotten dung or decayed
leaves, one part of lime rubbish, and one part of road drift. On the
Continent they frequently bury the parts cut off the vine in pruning,
in the border, and this is said to make excellent manure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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