408 THE GARDENER. [Sept. 



direction. The border is liberally manured annually, very much in 

 the manner referred to in our last issue. In another adjoining house 

 there is a very superb crop of Gros Colmar on Vines, planted some 

 four years since, and that are now in full bearing. In the other 

 houses there are some remarkably vigorous and fruitful younger 

 Vines, of such varieties as Alicante, Black Hamburg, and Muscats. 

 The Vines are allowed plenty of room, and carry a good spread of 

 foliage, and amply justify the practice of giving individual rods 

 plenty of room, instead of crowding them together at the rate of 

 2 and 2^ feet. To do such Grapes as Muscats of Alexandria and 

 Gros Colmar justice, they should never be closer than 4 or 4^ feet. 

 They will carry as many Grapes as when planted more closely, and 

 they have many conditions in favour of properly ripening the crop 

 and wood, which do not exist in the crowding system. 



MAJSrURING AND DIGGING AMONG ROSES. 



Hybeid Perpetual Roses are cultivated in every garden in these 

 Islands, but in too many cases with but indifferent success. Being 

 universal favourites, and having a very large number of admirers, 

 it is no wonder that all owners of gardens should endeavour to pro- 

 duce as many Roses as possible, even though circumstances may 

 be unfavourable to even fair success. One reason of many failures, 

 especially in cold, late, or northern districts, is the extremely severe 

 weather experienced in winter ; and in not a few cases the low tem- 

 perature of summer, from which we have suffered much in late years, 

 has largely contributed to the dying out of the plants, because of the 

 immature condition of the shoots consequent on the want of a tempera- 

 ture high enough to properly ripen them. These evils have been, we 

 believe, in a large percentage of cases, aggravated by heavy mulchings 

 of manure in winter, the digging of this manure into the ground in 

 spring, and the liberal application of manure-water in summer. 



The application of manure does not get the attention which the 

 subject demands. Writers on gardening subjects, practising perhaps 

 where there is a moderate rainfall, and where the days of sunshine and 

 dry warm winds prevail, often give advice which is thoroughly good 

 for those who garden under like conditions, but which proves disas- 

 trous when followed to the letter in other districts where the rainfall 

 is great, the temperature low, and the climate damp. This is especially 

 so in the case of the Rose. Most of our best and most extensive Rose- 

 growers, and almost all of those who have produced books on the 

 subject, reside south, some of them far south, of the Tweed, and 

 even the Humber. Nevertheless the teachings of men in the sunny 

 south are followed on " the bleak Northumbrian coast " and far north 

 in Scotland with evil results. 



