148 



The Weekly Florists' Review. 



Decembeu 16, 1S97. 



Interior view, looking to the front, of tlie new store of Mr. Fred. C. Weber, St. Louis, Mo. 



GRAPES IN POTS. 



This is not floriculture but I was re- 

 ininiled to-iiay by my neighbor and 

 friend, Mr. Harry Swift, when speaking 

 about pot vines, that I have thought 

 often what an attraction fora florist's win- 

 dow in August, September or October, 

 would be a well-grown pot of Black Ham- 

 burg grapes. I believe a 12 or 15-inch 

 pot with a dozen perfect bunches of fin- 

 ished grapes mingling with their fine 

 leaves, would be just one of those sights 

 that would halt the crowd and be a con- 

 stant attraction. And if )'ou had a dozen 

 of them how easih- they could be dis- 

 posed of as a drawing card in any win- 

 dow, particularh- where the choicest 

 fruits and vegetables were sold, or even 

 where sparkling Moselle was a leading 

 article; in fact any window where a novel 

 attraction is desired. 



As I once made a very successful at- 

 tempt at fruiting pot vines I shall cer- 

 tainly tn,- it again this coming spring. 

 There is nothing difficult about it when 

 von know how, and I do most humbly 

 accord to myself a little bit of originalit}- 

 in growing, which was almost entirel}' 

 the key to my success. It was in 1S75 

 that mv employer asked me the qxiestion 

 could i grow some pot vines to occup3- 

 space between the permanent vines till 

 they wanted all the room allotted to 

 thein. I had under my care a finevinerj- 

 100 feet long, 16 feet wide, a curvilinear 

 roof leaning against a 12 foot brick wall, 

 heated with five runs of 4-inch hot water 

 pipes. This was not pipes enough to 

 call it a hot grapery, but it was sufficient 



to start in February-, for before the grapes 

 needed nnich heat the spring weather 

 would help along. I may say here that 

 the permanent grapes were never a great 

 success for two reasons: The border was 

 all inside, a big mistake in anj- climate, 

 and m}- employer would not let me go 

 and skin a quarter of an acre of fine sod 

 from his own land; no better ever laid 

 out of doors but it was devoted to the sa- 

 cred cause of white carrots and mangel 

 wurzels, so I had to hunt around and the 

 best I could do was to buy a lot of strip- 

 ping from a near-by stone quarry, a poor 

 sandy, gritty soil, very unfit for the pur- 

 pose. When I grew the pot, or rather 

 tub. vines I was careful not to use that 

 poor stuff; I went in the dead of night 

 and got a cartload of timothy sod and 

 filled up the place robbed with refuse 

 soil from the greenhouse. 



On or about February 2nd, 1875, hav- 

 ing no propagating bed warm enough to 

 start grape eyes (they take a good brisk 

 bottom heat), I constructed a small box 

 over three runs of pipe by first keeping 

 on the heat side and ends, and a few slates 

 on top, with a few inches of sand, into 

 w^hich I plunged about two dozen 3-inch 

 pots, each of which held an eye. How 

 the wood is cut is perhaps of little conse- 

 quence. Above the eye I nia^de almost a 

 square ciit, and lielow tapered the cutting 

 off for about an inch and a half, giving 

 plenty of surface to root from. The qual- 

 ity of wood I was careful about; it was 

 neither the largest long-jointed stuff nor 

 the small stunted growth. The w-ood 

 had, of course, been cut the previous 



December, and stored away in a cool cel- 

 lar, with its ends stuck in some sand. 

 With a genial heat and moisture the eyes 

 soon made a start, and in seven or eight 

 weeks had made a growth of a foot or 

 eighteen inches, but what was of more 

 consequence, the pots were well filled 

 with fine white roots. Now they wanted 

 a change. 



If I had followed out what I had seen 

 done across the Atlantic and what I be- 

 lieve would be considered orthodox, I 

 would have shifted them into a 6-inch, 

 when needing it into a ginch, and from a 

 9 to a 12. But this I did not do, and 

 as gardeners knew little of each other 

 then, and I was not then privileged to 

 write to Burt Eddy, or P. Welch, or Den- 

 nis O'Connell, I had to depend on my 

 own inspiration, so I took a dozen com- 

 mon flour barrels to the nearest cooper 

 and had him cut them just in halves and 

 coopered up strong. The tubs were filled 

 with that excellent sod, a yellow loam in 

 lumps the size of your fist, a fifth of cow- 

 manure, rather fresh, a good sprinkling 

 of coarse bone dust, and some old lime 

 rubbish. I don't know why I added the 

 last ingredient — perhaps with no better 

 reason than some men interlard their 

 conversation with numerous strong ad- 

 jectives and other forms of expressive 

 speech; however, I w-ould use some again; 

 it helped to keep the soil open, with 

 nearly all plants of the greatest benefit. 

 From the 3-inch pots into the tubs went 

 the little vines, and that was where 1 struck 

 it right. 



As the }-oung vines advanced about the 



