The poetical philanthropists of the shepherd and shepherdess school, if any still remain, may find abundant material for their doleful denunciations of modern civilization on journeying among the house-tops by any of our over-ground metropolitan and suburban railways, and contemplating therefrom the panorama presented by a rapid succession of London back yards. The sandy Sahara, and the saline deserts of Central Asia, are bright and breezy, rural and cheerful, compared with these foul, soot-smeared, lumber-strewn areas of desolation.

The object of this paper is to propose a remedy for these metropolitan measle-spots, by converting them into gardens that shall afford both pleasure and profit to all concerned.

A very obvious mode of doing this would be to cover them with glass, and thus convert them into winter gardens or conservatories. The cost of this at once places it beyond practical reach; but even if the cost were disregarded, as it might be in some instances, such covering in would not be permissible on sanitary grounds; for, doleful and dreary as they are, the back yards of London perform one very important and necessary function; they act as ventilation-shafts between the house-backs of the more densely populated neighborhoods.

At one time I thought of proposing the establishment of horticultural home missions for promoting the dissemination of flower-pot shrubs in the metropolis, and of showing how much the atmosphere of London would be improved if every London family had one little sweetbriar bush, a lavender plant, or a hardy heliotrope to each of its members; so that a couple of million of such ozone generators should breathe their sweetness into the dank and dead atmosphere of the denser central regions of London.

A little practical experience of the difficulty of growing a clean cabbage, or maintaining alive any sort of shrub in the midst of our soot-drizzle, satisfied me that the mission would fail, even though the sweetbriars were given away by the district visitors; for these simple hardy plants perish in a mid-London atmosphere unless their leaves are periodically sponged and syringed, to wash away the soot particles that otherwise close their stomata and suffocate the plant.

It is this deposit that stunts or destroys all our London vegetation, with the exception of those trees which, like the planes have a deciduous bark and cuticle.

Some simple and inexpensive means of protecting vegetation from London soot are, therefore, most desirable.

When the Midland Institute commenced its existence in temporary buildings in Cannon Street, Birmingham, in 1854, I was compelled to ventilate my class-rooms by temporary devices, one of which was to throw open the existing windows, and protect the students from the heavy blast of entering air by straining it through a strong gauze-like fabric stretched over the opening.

After a short time the tammy became useless for its intended purpose; its interstices were choked with a deposit of carbon. On examining this, I found that the black deposit was all on the outside, showing that a filtration of the air had occurred. Even when the tammy was replaced by perforated zinc, puttied into the window frames in the place of glass panes, it was found necessary to frequently wash the zinc, in order to keep the perforations open.

The recollection of this experience suggested that if a gauze-like fabric, cheaper and stronger than the tammy, can be obtained, and a sort of greenhouse made with this in the place of glass, the problem of converting London back-yards into gardens might be solved.

After some inquiries and failures in the trial of various cheap fabrics, I found one that is already to be had, and well adapted to the purpose. It is called “wall canvas,” or “scrim,” is retailed at 3½d. per yard, and is one yard wide. If I am rightly informed, it may be bought in wholesale quantities at about 2¼d. per square yard, i.e., one farthing per square foot. This fabric is made of coarse unbleached thread yarn, very strong and open in structure. The light passes so freely through it that when hung before a window the loss of light in the room is barely perceptible. When a piece is stretched upon a frame, a printed placard, or even a newspaper, may be read through it.

The yarn being loosely spun, fine fluffy filaments stand out and bar the interstices against the passage of even very minute carbonaceous particles. These filaments may be seen by holding it up to the light.

The fabric being one yard wide, and of any length required, all that is needed for a roof or side walls is a skeleton made of lines or runs of quartering, at 3 feet distance from each other. The cost of such quartering, made of pitch pine, the best material for outside work, is under one penny per foot run; of common white deal, about three farthings. Thus the cost of material for a roof, say a lean-to from a wall-top to the side of a house, which would be the most commonly demanded form of 30 feet by 10 feet, i.e., 300 square feet, would be—

The size of the quartering proposed is 2½ by 1¼ inch, which, laid edgewise, would bear the weight of a man on a plank while nailing down the canvas. The canvas has a stout cord-like edge or selvage, that holds the nails well.

I find that what are called “French tacks” are well suited for nailing it down. They are made of wire, well pointed, have good-sized flat clout heads, and are very cheap. They are incomparably superior to the ordinary rubbish sold as “tin tacks” or “cut tacks.” The construction of such a conservatory is so simple that any industrious artisan or clerk with any mechanical ingenuity could, with the aid of a boy, do it all himself. No special skill is required for any part of the work, and no other tools than a rule, a saw, and a hammer. Side posts and stronger end rails would in some cases be demanded.

I have not been able to fairly carry out this project, inasmuch as I reside at Twickenham, beyond the reach of the black showers of London soot. I have, however, made some investigations relative to the climate which results from such enclosure.

This was done by covering a small skeleton frame with the canvas, putting it upon the ground over some cabbage plants, etc., and placing registering thermometers on the ground inside, and in similar position outside the frame; also by removing the glass cover of a cucumber frame, and replacing it by a frame on which the canvas is stretched.

I planted 300 cabbages in November last, in rows on the open ground, and placed the canvas-covered frame over 18 of them. At the present date, March 15, only 26 of the 282 outside plants are visible above the ground. All the rest have been cut off by the severe frost. Under the frame all are flourishing.

I find that the difference between the maximum and the minimum temperatures varies with the condition of the sky. In cloudy weather, the difference between the inside and the outside rarely exceeds 2° Fahr., and occasionally there is no difference. In clear weather the difference is considerable. During the day the outside thermometer registers from four or five to seven or eight degrees above that within the screen during the sunshine. At night the minimum thermometers show a difference which in one case reached 14°, i.e., between 23d and 24th February, when the lowest temperature I have observed was reached. The outside thermometer then fell to 8° Fahr., the inside to 22°. On the night of the 24th and 25th they registered 15½° outside, 25½° inside. On other, or ordinary clear frosty nights, with E. and N. and N.E. winds, the difference has ranged between 4° and 6°, usually within a fraction of the average, 5°. The uniformity of this during the recent bright frosty nights, followed by warm sunny days, has been very remarkable, so much so that I think I may venture to state that 5° may be expected as the general protecting effect of a covering of such canvas from the mischievous action of our spring frosts which are due to nocturnal radiation into free space. Thus we obtain a climate, the mean of which would be about the same as outside, but subject to far less variation. How will this affect the growth of plants desirable to cultivate in the proposed canvas conservatories?

In the first place, we must not expect the results obtainable under glass, which by freely transmitting the bright solar rays, and absorbing or resisting the passage of the obscure rays from the heated soil, produces, during sunshine, a tropical climate here in our latitudes. We may therefore at once set aside any expectation of rearing exotic plants of any kind; even our native and acclimatized plants, which require the maximum heat of English sunshine, are not likely to flourish.

On the other hand, all those which demand moderate protection from sudden frosts, especially from spring frosts, and which flourish when we have a long mild spring and summer, are likely to be reared with especial success.

This includes nearly all our table vegetables, our salads, kitchen herbs, and British fruits, all our British and many exotic ferns, and, I believe, most of our out-of-door plants, both wild and cultivated.

As the subject of ornamental flowers is a very large one, and one with the cultivation of which I have very little practical acquaintance, I will pass it over; but must simply indicate that, in respect to ferns, the canvas enclosure offers a combination of most desirable conditions. The slight shade, the comparatively uniform temperature, and the moderated exhalation, are just those of a luxuriant fern dingle.

Respecting the useful or economic products I can speak with more confidence, that being my special department in our family or home gardening, which, as physical discipline, I have always conducted myself, with a minimum of professional aid. My experience of a small garden leads me to give first place to salads. A yard square of rich soil, well managed, will yield a handsome and delicious weekly dish of salad nearly all the year round; and, at the same rate, seven or eight square yards will supply a daily dish—including lettuces, endives, radishes, spring onions, mustard, and various kinds of cress, and fancy salads, all in a state of freshness otherwise unattainable by the Londoner. My only difficulty has arisen from irregularity of supply. From the small area allowed for salads, I have been over-supplied in July, August, and September, and reduced to in-door or frame-grown mustard and cress during the winter. With the equable insular climate obtainable under the canvas, this difficulty will be greatly diminished; and besides this, most of the salads are improved by partial shade, lettuces and endives more blanched and delicate than when exposed to scorching sun, radishes less fibrous, mustard, cress, etc., milder in flavor and more succulent.

The multitude of savory kitchen herbs that are so sadly neglected in English cookery (especially in the food of the town artisan and clerk), all, with scarcely an exception, demand an equable climate and protection from our destructive spring frosts. These occupy very little space, less even than salads, and are wanted in such small quantities at a time, and so frequently, that the hard-worked housewife commonly neglects them altogether, rather than fetch them from the greengrocer’s in their exorbitantly small pennyworths. If she could step into the back yard, and gather her parsley, sage, thyme, winter savory, mint, marjoram, bay leaf, rosemary, etc., the dinner would become far more savory, and the demand for the alcoholic substitutes for relishing food proportionably diminished.

My strongest anticipations, however, lie in the direction of common fruits—apples, pears, cherries, plums of all kinds, peaches, nectarines, gooseberries, currants, raspberries, strawberries, etc.

The most luxuriant growth of cherries, currants, gooseberries, and raspberries I have ever seen in any part of the world that I have visited, is where they might be least expected, viz., Norway; not the South of Norway merely, but more particularly in the valleys that slope from the 500 square miles of the perpetual ice desert of the Justedal down to the Sognefjord, latitude 61° to 61½°, considerably to the north of the northernmost of the Shetland Islands. The cherry and currant trees are marvelous there.

In the garden of one of the farm stations (Sande) I counted 70 fine bunches of red currants growing on six inches of one of the overladen down-hanging stems of a currant bush. Cherries are served for dessert by simply breaking off a small branch of the tree and bringing it to the table—the fruit almost as many as the leaves.

This luxuriance I attribute to two causes. First, that in that part of Norway the winter breaks up suddenly at about the beginning of June, and not until then, when night frosts are no longer possible, do the blossoms appear. It was on the 24th August that I counted the 70 bunches of ripe currants. The second cause is the absence of sparrows and other destructive small birds that devour our currants for the seeds’ sake before they ripen, and our cherries immediately on ripening. These are preceded by the bullfinches that feed on the tender hearts of the buds of most of our fruit trees. Those who believe the newspaper myths which represent such thick-billed birds eating caterpillars, should make observations and experiments for themselves as I have done.

In our canvas conservatories neither sparrows nor caterpillars, nor wasps, or other fruit-stealers will penetrate, nor will the spring frosts nip the blossoms that open out in April. All the conditions for full bearing are there fulfilled, and the ripening season, though not so intense, will be prolonged. We shall have an insular Jersey climate in London, where the mean temperature is higher than in the country around, and, if I am not quite deluded, we shall be able to grow the choicest Jersey pears, those that best ripen by hanging on the tree until the end of December, and fine peaches, which are commonly destroyed by putting forth their blossoms so early. All the hundred and one varieties of plums and damsons, greengages, etc., that can grow in temperate climates will be similarly protected from the frosts that kill their early blossoms, and the birds and the wasps that will not give them time to ripen slowly.

I have little doubt that if my project is carried out, any London householder, whether rich or poor, may indulge in delicious desserts of rich fruit all grown on the sites of their own now dirty and desolate back-yards; that if prizes be given for the most prolific branches of cherry and plum trees, gooseberry and currant bushes, the gardens of the Seven-dials and of classic St. Giles’s may carry off some of the gold medals; and that, by judicious economy of space and proper pruning of the trees, the canvas conservatories may be made not only to serve as orchard houses, but also to grow the salads, kitchen herbs, and green vegetables for cookery, under the fruit trees or close around their stems.

Among the suitable vegetables, I may name a sort of perennial spinach which yields a wonderful amount of produce on a small area. Four years ago I took the house in which I now reside, and found the garden overgrown with a weed that appeared like beet, the leaves being much larger than ordinary spinach. I tried in vain to eradicate it, then gave some leaves to my fowls. They ate them greedily. After this I had some boiled, and found that the supposed weed is an excellent spinach, which may be sown broadcast in thick patches, without any interspaces, and cut down again and again all the year round, fresh leaves springing up from the roots until the autumn, when it throws up tall flowering stems, and yields an abundant crop of seeds. I have some now, self-sown, that have survived the whole of the late severe winter, while turnip-tops, cabbages, and everything else have perished. I have sown the ordinary spinach seed in the usual manner in rows, and comparing it with the self-sown dense patches of this intruder, find the latter produces, square yard against square yard, six or eight times as much of available eatable crop.

None of my friends who are amateur gardeners know this variety; but a few days since, I called on Messrs. James Carter and Co., the wholesale seedsmen of Holborn, and described it. They gave me a packet of what they call “Perpetual spinach beet,” which, as may be seen by comparison with the seeds of those I have here of my own growing, is probably the same. Messrs. Carter and Co. tell me that the plant is very little known, and the seed scarce from want of cultivation and demand. I therefore step so far aside to describe and recommend it as specially suited for obtaining large crops on small areas.33

I also recommend a mode of growing cabbages that I have found very profitable, viz., to sow the seed broadcast in richly manured beds or patches and leave the plants crowding together; cut them down while very young, without destroying the centre bud; let them sprout again and again. They thus yield a succession of crops, every leaf of which is eatable. This, instead of transplanting and growing large plants, which, however desirable for sale in the market, are far less profitable for home use. Celery may be grown in like manner, and cut down young and green for boiling.

Some collateral advantages may be fairly anticipated in cases where the back-yard is fully enclosed by the canvas.

In the first place, the air coming into the house from the back will be more or less filtered from the grimy irritant particles with which our London atmosphere is loaded, besides obtaining the oxygen given off by the growing plants, and the ozone which recent investigations have shown to be produced where aromatic plants—such as kitchen herbs—are growing. Lavender, which is very hardy, and spreads spontaneously, might be grown for this purpose.

Back-doors might be left open for ventilation, without danger of intrusion or of slamming by gusts of wind. The air thus admitted would be tempered both in summer and winter. By wetting the canvas, which may easily be done by means of a small garden engine, or hand syringe, the exceptionally hot summer days that are so severely felt in London might be moderated to a considerable extent. The air under the canvas being cooler than that in front would enter from below, while the warmer air would be pushed upwards and outwards to the front.

Although such conservatories may be erected, as already stated, by artisans or other tenants of small houses, I do not advocate dependence on this; but, on the contrary, regard them as more properly constituting landlord’s fixtures, and recommend their erection by owners of small house property in London and other large towns. A workman who will pay a trifle extra for such a garden, is likely to be a better and more permanent tenant than one who is content with the slovenly squallor of ordinary back premises.

I base this opinion on some experience of holding small houses in the outskirts of Birmingham (Talbot Street, Winson Green.) These have small gardens, while most of those around have none. They are held by weekly tenure, and, during eighteen years, I have not lost a week’s rent from voids; the men who would otherwise shift their dwelling when they change workshops, prefer to remain and walk some distance rather than lose their little garden crops; and when obliged to leave, have usually found me another tenant, a friend who has paid them a small tenant-right premium for what is left in the garden, or for the privilege of getting a house with such a garden.

A small garden is one of the best rivals to the fascinations of the tap-room; the strongest argument in favor of my canvas conservatories, and that which I reserve as the last, is that they are likely to become the poor man’s drawing-room, where he may spend his summer evenings, smoke his pipe, contemplate his growing plants, and show them in rivalry to his friends, rather than slink away from an unattractive home to seek the sensual excitements that ruin so many of our industrious fellow-countrymen.

As above stated, I have not been able practically to test the filtering capabilities of the canvas, owing to my residence out of town, but since the above was written, i.e., on last Wednesday evening, I visited the Houses of Parliament, where, as I had been told, the ventilation arrangements include some devices for filtering the air by cotton, wool or otherwise. I was much interested on finding that the long experience and many trials of Dr. Percy and his assistant engineer, Mr. Prim, have resulted in the selection of the identical material which I have chosen, and with which the above-described experiments have been made. A wall of such canvas surrounds a lower region of the Houses, and all the air that is destined to have the privilege of being breathed by British legislators is passed through this vertical screen, for the purpose of separating from it the sooty impurities that constitute the special abomination of our metropolitan atmosphere, and that of our great manufacturing towns. The quantity of sooty matter thus arrested is shown by the fact that it is found necessary to take the screens down once a week and wash them, the wash water coming away in a semi-inky condition.

I anticipate that the conservatory filters will rapidly clog, and, therefore, require washing. This may easily be done by means of a jet from a hand-syringe directed from within outwards, especially if the slope of the roof is considerable, which is to be recommended. The filtering screen of the Houses of Parliament is made by sewing the canvas edges together, to form a large continuous area, then edging the borders of this with tape, and stretching it bodily on to a stout frame. This method may be found preferable to that which I proposed above, and cheaper than I have estimated, as only very light intermediate cross-pieces would thus be required, merely to prevent bagging, the parliamentary quartering above described being nine feet apart instead of three. This would reduce the cost of timber to about one half of the above estimate.34 The perpendicular walls of a conservatory, where such are required, may certainly be made thus, and I think the roof also, if the slope is considerable. Or, if in demand, the material may be made of greater width than the three feet.

So far, I have only mentioned back-yards; but, besides these, there are many very melancholy front areas, called “gardens,” attached to good houses in some of the once suburban, but now internal regions of London, where the houses stand some distance back from the formerly rural highway. These spaces might be cheaply enclosed with canvas, and cultivated as kitchen gardens, orchard houses, flower gardens, or ferneries, thus forming elegant, refreshing, and profitable vestibules between the highway and the house-door, and also serve as luxurious summer drawing-rooms. The only objection I foresee to these bright enclosures will be their tendency to encourage the consumption of tobacco.

The Discussion which followed the reading of the preceding paper at the Society of Arts.

A member asked if Mr. Williams had observed the effect of wind and rain on this material?

Mr. W.P.B. Shepheard said he was interested in a large square in London, and he had hoped to hear something about the cultivation of flowers in such places. Last year, they tried the experiment with several varieties of flower seeds, and they came up and bloomed well in the open ground without any protection whatever. In most London squares, the difficulty was to find anyone bold enough to try the experiment at all, and nothing but experience would prove what flowers would succeed and what would not. They were so successful last year that several fine bouquets were gathered in July and August, and sent to some of the gardening magazines, who expressed their astonishment that such good results were possible in the circumstances. If flowers would answer, there would, of course, be more encouragement to try vegetables. One of the practical difficulties which occurred to him, with regard to this plan, was that the screens would be somewhat unsightly, and then again they might shrink, from alteration in the temperature and getting wet and dry. He would repeat, however, that, for a very small expense in seeds, a very good show of hardy annuals and perennials might be obtained in July and August even in London.

Mr. C. Cooke said a flower-garden had recently been opened in Drury Lane, on the site of an old churchyard, to which children were admitted; and he wished a similar arrangement might be made in some of the squares in crowded neighborhoods, such as Golden Square, and especially in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. There were lots of children playing about in the streets, and he wished the good example set by the Templars might be followed.

Mr. Liggins, as an old member of the Royal Horticultural Society, felt a great interest in this subject. Among his poorer neighbors in the district of Kensington, cottage and window gardening had been encouraged for some years past, prizes having been awarded to those who were most successful, much to their gratification. This was a novel idea, but he felt quite sure that it would enable those who adopted it to obtain the crops which had been described. There were many collateral advantages which it would bestow on the working classes if largely followed by them, especially the one mentioned by Mr. Williams, that those who devoted their spare time to the cultivation of fruit and flowers would not be so open to the attractions of the public-house. When traveling through the United States some years ago, he was much struck with the difference in appearance of the houses in districts where the Maine liquor law was in force, and soon learned to distinguish where it was adopted by the clean, cheerful look of the workmen’s dwellings, the neatness of the gardens, and the presence of trees and flowers which, in other districts, were wanting. He was not a teetotaler himself, and was not advocating such restrictions, but he could not help noticing the contrast; and he felt sure that in all our large towns great progress in civilization and morals would be effected if such an attraction were offered to the working classes. He believed there was so much intelligence and good sense among them, that if they only knew what could be done in this way they would attempt it; and when an Englishman attempted anything, he generally succeeded.

Mr. William Botly said they were much indebted to Mr. Williams for having called attention to this important subject. He quite agreed with the observations of the last speaker, for his own experience in building cottages showed him that the addition of a piece of garden ground had an excellent effect on the social, moral, and religious welfare of the inmates. It kept them from the public-house, and the children who were brought up to hoe and weed their parents’ gardens turned out the most industrious laborers on his property. He had known of instances where houses had been built with flat concrete roofs, and covered in with glass, so as to form a conservatory, in which vegetables and salads grow very well, and he believed the cost was little, if any, more than ordinary slating.

The Chairman (Lord Alfred Churchill) in moving a vote of thanks to Mr. Williams, said there could be no doubt that if his suggestion were adopted it would lead to great economy, and have many other attractions for the working classes. During the last few years they had heard a good deal about floriculture in windows, and no doubt it was an excellent proposal, but if they could add to this the growth of vegetables it would have economical advantages also. The proposal to erect temporary conservatories on the roofs of some of these small houses was an admirable one. He saw no reason why you should not have a peach tree growing against many a tall chimney; you would only want a metal-lined tub filled with a good mold; the warmth of the chimney would aid in promoting the growth of the tree, and it could be protected from the smoke and frost by this canvas. One point he should like to know was, whether the fabric would not become rotted by the weather, and perhaps it might be protected by tanning, or some chemical preparation. The effect of the canvas in maintaining an equable temperature was a great consideration; the difference stated by Mr. Williams, of about five degrees in winter, in many cases would be just enough to save the life of a plant. Practical gardeners knew the value of placing a covering over a peach tree in early spring to keep off the frosts, and also to protect it from the attacks of birds. It was also a curious fact that even a slip of wood or slate a few inches wide, put on the top of a wall to which a fruit tree was nailed, acted as a protection from frost. He trusted that Mr. Williams’ idea would find favor among the working classes, and thought it was a subject the Royal Horticultural Society might well take up and offer prizes for. He hoped in a short time, when that Society had passed through a crisis which was impending, it might emerge in a condition to devote attention to this matter. It already offered prizes for small suburban flower-shows, but had not yet turned its attention to the larger class aimed at by Mr. Williams.

Mr. Botly said he had forgotten to mention that he had a friend, a very excellent gardener, who always loosened his fruit trees from the wall for about three weeks before the time of blooming. The consequence was, they did not get so much heat from the wall, and the bloom was two or three weeks later in forming. After the spring frosts, the trees were again nailed up close, and he never failed in getting an excellent crop, when his neighbors often had none.

Mr. Trewby wished to caution those who read the paper against using what was commonly known as paperhangers’ canvas, because it was made of two materials, hemp and jute, and if a piece of it were put into water it would soon be nothing but a lot of strings, the jute being all dissolved. It did very well for paper-hanging, but would be quite unsuitable for this purpose.35

The vote of thanks having been passed—

Mr. Williams, in reply, said he had had a piece of this canvas stretched on a frame exposed all the winter, and the only result was to make it rather dirty. He stretched it as tightly as he could in putting it on, but when it got wet it became still more tight, and gave a little again on becoming dry. It bore the weight of the snow which had fallen very well, and two or three spadefuls had been added to try it. He had a note from Mr. Prim, saying that at the Houses of Parliament the screens last about two sessions, being washed once a week, and the destruction is due to the wringing. But there is really no occasion for this, for if you syringe the stuff well from the inside, you make it sufficiently clear to allow the air and light to pass through, and it would probably last many years. He had tried the experiment of dipping it in a very weak solution of tar, but this had the effect of matting together the fine filaments, so that it did not act so effectually as a strainer. It acted best when wet, because the fine particles of soot adhered to it, and moist weather was just the time when the greatest quantity of soot fell. It might be easily tried in London squares to aid in the growth of flowers; he found that the cabbage plants which were so protected throve remarkably well, and he had no doubt that if flowers were planted and a screen put over them until they were ready to bloom, it would be a great advantage. The action of a little peat on the top of a wall to protect fruit trees is very simple, and the explanation was afforded by the experiments of Dr. Wells on dew. The frosts which did the greatest mischief, were due to radiation from the ground on clear nights; and it would be found that if one thermometer were placed in a garden under an umbrella, and another on the open ground near it, the differences of temperature would be very considerable; on cloudy nights there was very little difference. Last night there was only a difference of 2°, but a few nights before it was 6°. The period of greatest cold might not probably be more than hour, but it would be sufficient to do a great deal of mischief, and anything which would check the radiation would have the required effect. In the case of loosening the fruit trees from the wall there was, probably, a double action; it prevented the tree being forced on by the warmth or the wall in the daytime, and also avoided the chilling effect at night, a rough wall being a good radiator, and sinking to a low temperature. He did not think there was much danger to be apprehended from wind, because the canvas being so open, the wind would pass freely through it; but he had not seen it subjected to any violent gale.