Leafring, in your April issue, asks for some information about Orchard Houses. As I have had some experience in this new mode of culture the past three or four years, I shall take the liberty to answer his question.

Leafring should not have planted his trees in November, or rather the trees should not have been put into the house at this time, and I should very much question the advantage of getting them at all before the spring, since a tree taken from the ground in November, and put into a pot, would hardly get sufficient root-hold to be secure enough to be kept back in a cold or pit house during the winter.

In the first place, the trees, vines, etc, should be planted in pots (13 by 13,) or one size less, not boxes. Early in April, if not in good shape, they should be cut back to three or four buds, and then brought into the house. Presuming that Leafring understands their subsequent summer treatment, the proper amount of watering, syringing, pinching, etc, and above all, the great care necessary against the attacks of red spider, with a careful ripening off the wood in the autumn, I proceed at once to their winter treatment, where I think he has made two principal errors.

In our extremely cold and disagreeable winter, we wish our wood to be entirely ripened off. Leafring, instead of giving his trees "a good soaking," as is the custom in the entirely different English climate, should have watered his plants, after October, barely enough to keep them alive, and ripen them as much as possible. In fact, if out doors, they should be moved under cover at the sign of any storm.

In the second place, he could not possibly have done a worse thing than to put them into his house at the beginning of winter," and to leave them there, subjected to the tremendous alternations of 60 degrees by day, and perhaps zero, or a little above it, at night. He is very much mistaken, or I certainly am, if he thinks his thermometer does not get below 40°.

I think there were nights last winter, and every winter, when the mercury in any glass-house without fire, will get down nearly as low as it does outside, in the same way as a powerful January or February sun will carry it up to 70° or 80° during the bright hours.

All orchard-house trees in pots, in this country, should unquestionably be removed at the approach of winter, to some cellar or pit, where they get very little or no frost; or, if necessary to be kept in the orchard-house, they should (in their pots) be heeled-in pretty deeply, and the trees above ground shielded as much as possible from sun by mats or hurdles platted in straw, or even boards; but no sun should be allowed to come to the trees, and no, or little frost to the root, until the time to begin to force, if fire heat is used, or until it is safe to commence without fire, say 20th of April to the 1st of May.

In either case, they should be very carefully taken up, so as not to injure the buds; the trees and pots washed, dressed with a rich mulching, and syringed, and the temperature not permitted to fall below 50° by night, with plenty of air by day.

It is almost impossible, in our long, dry summers and intense suns, to keep the trees from red spider; therefore I have found it best to move all my pots out about the first of June, sink them in the ground, and mulch the surface. In this way, there being less evaporation, the plants require less water at the roots, though constant syringing in very bright, dry weather.

By adopting this process, particularly by removing all the plants into a cellar during the winter, and keeping them very dry, and as early in the spring as you choose to force, (I generally begin 1st March,) moving them back again until 1st June, I have succeeded in getting the finest possible fruit, and in the greatest abundance, of every variety - Apples, Grapes, Cherries, Plums, Nectarines, Apricots, Peaches, Figs, etc.; in short, with a good cellar or pit from November to March or April, and an orchard-house from April to June, with an outside bed or border from June to November, one can raise any variety of the above-mentioned fruits, in perfection. In fact, in our climate in America, I believe a light, airy cellar, free from much ,frost, is alone necessary in order to protect the plants from November to April, when the pots could be brought out and sunk in the ground. This method of cultivation, however, would not advance the trees much, if any, over those planted in the ground outside, but would have the advantage only of winter protection under cover.

The fruit, however, would be as fine as if started in an orchard house.

The great and (if one has a cellar or pit for the trees in winter) the only use of an orchard house in this country is, from my experience, the advantage of introducing fire heat during March, so as to give the plants one month's gain over outsiders. This advantage allows the fruit to become sufficiently large to resist the attacks of the curculio, when the weather is warm enough to require the ventilators opened, or when the plants themselves finally are moved out.

I have, at this moment, Peaches covered with fruit, which less than one year ago were planted in a 13-inch pot, and cut back to a naked stem (stick) four inches only long.

[Mr. Sargent has probably had more experience with the "Orchard House" than any other person in the country, and Leafring, in common with others, will thank him for the valuable information contained in his article. Mr. Sargent's position, that the only use of an orchard house in this country is to forward the fruit, is no doubt the correct one. We grew fruit-trees in pots many years ago, and have elsewhere given our views on the subject. Leafring, in addition to the error of placing the trees in large tubs, made another, and a serious one, in the purchase of trees of large size, as we have had occasion to say to Leafring personally, from whom we had the pleasure of a call; and we may just as well say here, (and we blushed not a little when we discovered our mistake,) that Leafring is not a man, but a real woman, whose name would be recognized by thousands should we mention it; but that we shall not do at present. The joke was too good to be lost, and so we have preferred to let Mr. S. also call her "him." - Ed].