For late grapes, a house of a different construction is employed. The back wall is 12 feet high, the front wall 1-1/2 foot, and the roof lies at an angle of 45 degrees. The heat is supplied by a single flue passing along the middle of the house. The sorts best adapted for late forcing are the Muscat of Alexandria, the St. Peter’s, and the Black Damascus; all other kinds wither prematurely. This house is generally shut about the middle or end of May, as soon as the bunches become visible. The vines are trained on a trellis near the glass. Till they are out of blossom the air is kept very warm, a point to which much importance attaches, because it is during this period that all the branches that are to bear fruit in the succeeding season are produced. In a high temperature, the branches will grow more compactly, and [p162] will be more regularly matured than in a low temperature, in which the wood is apt to become excessively luxuriant, and not to ripen well. Great attention must be paid to this point. As much air as possible is introduced into the vinery during the summer; but as the autumn advances, more caution in this respect is observed. The fruit should be perfectly coloured at the approach of the dark season; for if the colouring be deferred too long, the berries will never acquire their proper flavour. Great care must be observed to remove daily such berries as are inclining to damp, or the whole crop will soon be spoiled. This should be particularly attended to; for the contagion of what gardeners call _damp_, arises from the growth of minute fungi which vegetate upon the epidermis, and spread during the autumn with alarming rapidity from bunch to bunch. The pruning of vines for late forcing is the same as has been already explained. When the crop is gathered, the house is unroofed for a short time, in order to expose the branches to a low temperature, and to the degree of humidity necessary to replenish their vessels, which have been drained by the dryness of the climate in which, when forced, they were necessarily kept. By the means above described, a regular supply of grapes is secured through the year. The late-house crop lasts from the middle of January to the end of March; it is succeeded by the first crop in the early-house, which carries on the supply into May, and it is continued by the grapes on the rafters in the same house until the vines in the pine stoves, which are forced early in January and February, produce their crops. These continue bearing through the summer, when a vinery, of which the forcing commences about the end of March, furnishes the supply till the late-house fruit is ready in January. Upon the whole this may be considered a most instructive and valuable communication. II. _On the Varieties of Cardoon, and the Methods of cultivating them_. By Mr. A. Mathews.