i88i.] NOTES ON THE VINE. 273 



shoots are not to be embedded, but the plants sliould ratlier stand on 

 " tiptoe " on their own roots. The base of the young bulbs should 

 just touch the moss — which should be kept slightly moist and growing, 

 and no more. Kept in stove-heat and carefully treated, these plants 

 will soon fill their pots with roots, when they should be treated to pots 

 one size larger. 



Instead of ripening off these small plants in the way advised for 

 flowering-plants, they must be retained in the stove, or East Indian 

 Orchid house, where such exists, and kept growing. Treated thus, 

 they will make from two to three growths a year instead of one, and 

 will double their number of breaks every time. Continual growing, 

 and continual shifting on as this becomes necessary for four years, 

 should produce plants a yard across, from 2 to 3 feet high, and with 

 from twenty to thirty leading bulbs. 



Such treatment produces rude health and rank growth but no 

 flowers ; and some little skill may be necessary to throw them into a 

 flowering state, for when in this robust condition they are generally 

 breaking at the base before the preceding bulbs are half grown. This 

 habit has got to be changed. To do this, water should be sparingly 

 given long before the growths are completed. Even with this stint- 

 ing they will break again at the end of summer, and if these new 

 breaks are allowed to grow, your purpose will be frustrated. Allow 

 them to grow 6 inches, and then imich them. At the same time ripen 

 the bulbs off in the way before mentioned. In spring you will find 

 that the pinched stumps will break grandly, and the plants produce 

 such a crop of flowers, on two or three sets of bulbs, as will be a 

 reward for time and labour. 



The time at which the flowers are wanted must regulate the time 

 when they are to be removed from the place where they are resting to 

 a warm house ; but this plant is very patient in this matter, and a few 

 weeks longer or shorter of a rest will not harm it much. However, 

 after it has once begun to grow, it must have a continuous growing 

 temperature until its bulbs are again made up. While in flower the 

 plants may be put into a house considerably cooler than a stove, but 

 it is not wise to subject them to greenhouse treatment. A. H., H. 



NOTES ON THE VINE. 



In some cases Vines are cultivated in winter, in many instances in 

 spring, but it is in summer when the great majority, especially of small 

 growers, prefer to cultivate them ; and no doubt they are right in 

 selection of season, as Vine-culture in summer is an easy matter com- 

 pared with winter and early spring culture ; but at certain times in 

 summer the requirements of the Vine are varied and numerous, and 

 according to the manner these are attended to so will the results be. 



