4 THE GARDENER. [Jan. 



and as suddenly lose the reputation thus obtained. That there is 

 some sufficient cause or causes for this sudden wax and wane of fruit- 

 fulness no sane man will deny, any more than he will the importance 

 of a discovery of a remedy for the latter ; and in order to arrive at 

 some safe conclusions on the subject, I will proceed to make a diag- 

 nosis of a set of " worn-out vines," and of the border they are planted 

 in — I cannot say growing in, for the active roots have left it years 

 ago. What, then, do I find ? small, thin, flaccid foliage, the lateral 

 growths getting annually smaller in wood and larger in pith ; the foot- 

 stalks of the bunches long and slender ; the bunches composed one 

 half of matured, the other of shanked berries ; the Vines very subject 

 to attacks of red-spider or any other living pest that afilicts the Vine. 

 If the atmosphere is kept moist, they throw out a great many air- 

 roots. Altogether they are in a most unsatisfactory condition. Then 

 what of the border ? Dig down a foot deep in it and you find no 

 young active roots. The soil is more of the consistency of putty than 

 anything else. It was rich when compounded, and is so much the 

 worse now. In the process of its removal you come upon a fine large 

 bare root, running as direct across it to the gravel-walk beyond as the 

 electric cable does across the Atlantic, and you are provoked to find 

 that though there is not a living rootlet in the border that has been 

 prepared with such care, there are abundance branching in all directions 

 among the broken bricks, stones, ashes, or gravel, as the case may be, 

 that form the walk. My readers will probably remark, Then why not 

 make the whole border of brickbats, stones, or gravel ? I reply, bet- 

 ter it were so than as matters but too frequently are found ; at the 

 same time I hold that a border properly made of good loam, with the 

 addition of a few bones, a little horse-manure, and, if the soil is heavy, 

 some brick rubbish or burnt clay, or both, is far more likely to give 

 good results than bricks, stones, or ashes. The reasons why the roots 

 branch in all directions in the walk are that undoubted law of 

 nature which provides many roots for a plant on poor soil as compared 

 with those on rich, and the sweeter state — to use a technical term — 

 of the material of which the walk is framed, as compared with the 

 border, kept so by the air in the interstices amongst the stones. Others 

 of the roots, as I have often found, have gone down into the miser- 

 ably poor sand or gravel of the subsoil. They are anywhere, in fact, 

 but where they were intended to be. Your neighbour plants a vinery, 

 and he means to prevent the evil complained of. He bricks up the 

 arches of his front wall to compel the roots to live at home till they 

 occupy the inside border well, when he means to let them out ; but 

 they have their revenge, for they go first to the bricks, then trace 

 them down to feel if they can get out underneath them. They fail, 



