Soptembor 12, 1867. ] 



JOURNAL OF UORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



199 



gardener found it difficult to do without yon, believe me you 

 would find it utterly impossible to do without the gardener." 



" I may have to submit to the rule, but that will not make 

 me acknowledge its propriety." — Maud. 



MILDEW ON GRAPES. 



I DO not believe that mildew attacks Grapes owing to the 

 Btate of|tbe roots (though so affirmed at page 139), but I rather 

 think it is induced by the state of the atmosphere. We learn 

 that in Vino countries mildew is of recent years unusually de- 

 structive, though the roots receive the same management as 

 they have for centuries. 



I will state a few facts bearing on the subject. In 1856 I 

 planted here (in Surbiton, Surrey), a small Vine of the Sweet- 

 water variety, to cover a stable wall. This Vine now covers 

 40 square feet of wall, the longest shoot is 70 feet long. The 

 foundation of the wall is 11 feet below the surface, in a sandy 

 Boil. Every year the Grapes of this Vino were preferred to 

 Grapes from the vinery. It was never mildewed, although we 

 were troubled with mildew during the last ten years. But this 

 year mildew attacked this healthy Vine in June, yet the tree is 

 most vigorous. 



I manage five Sweetwater Vinos on a wall 20 feet high. For 

 the last five years every one of the five trees was mildewed, 

 but this year only iive bunches are mildewed, although the 

 mildew is unusually bad in Surbiton. 



I planted a small lean-to vinery here seven years ago. It is 

 very damp, and the mildew has appeared for the last seven 

 years in June. Last winter I did not wash the Vines as usual, 

 now I am glad to state that not a particle of mildew has ap- 

 peared as yet, although the Grapes are seldom dry till twelve 

 o'clock daily. The fire is never lighted in this vinery till the 

 frost is severe. The border for the Vine roots is a stiff loam, 

 nearly as cold as clay, and exposed to all weathers. 



Now, how can I suppose that cold root-action is the cause of 

 mildew ? — Jouk lioss. 



DR. DE BRIOUS PAINT— SPEXCES HEAT- 

 RETAINING COMPOUND. 



Dr. de Biiioc, of Paris, has succeeded in producing an 

 enamel paint made from indianrubber, which though of film- 

 like consistency, when applied to iron renders it absolutely 

 proof against atmospheric action. The rapid radiation of heat 

 from unprotected cylindrical boilers, &c., where heat is not 

 required, has led to several inquiries being made through the 

 columns of the Journal as to the best mode of covering them. 



Mr. Spence, late of Portsmouth Dockyard, has devised a 

 composition which successfully resists the heat in the pipes of 

 blast-furnaces 1000°. It is readily applied to plain, concave, 

 or convex surfaces. It adheres to the surface as if it wore 

 part of the iron. The economy of fuel resulting from the use 

 of the composition is estimated by the inventor at 20 per cent. 

 Any information respecting either of the above compositions 

 would greatly oblige. — F. Flittox. 



HOW I HAVE EDUCATED JIY FRUIT TASTE. 

 My wife and I have not agreed very well together about 

 the merits of certain fruits. The fact is, I despise a mean 

 taste. I like that which is elegant and refined. Mrs. P. is 

 all you could wish in the drawing room, and it puzzles me 

 that she doesn't seem to have the same high-toned ideas in the 

 kitchen. You know (I suppose you do, as bj- a reference in 

 your last number I see you also are a married man), that there 

 will be quarrels in the best regulated system of married life, 

 and our first quarrel was over some wretched Albany seedling 

 Strawberries. Her mother's garden grew them, and she brought 

 me a few hundred to plant in ours. I had not had much ex- 

 perience in gardening, but marrying into a suburban family I 

 conclnded to start into a little gardening and matrimony to- 

 gether. I subscribed to the Il'trticiiltiirist, and in a number of 

 that periodical learned that the public taste was being degraded 

 by mean fruits, and that it was the duty of all who hud refined 

 ideas of what was good to educate the vulgar crowd to a know- 

 ledge of what was best for them, .\mong Strawberries the 

 Albany was particularly marked : " a hog would not eat it," 

 said the Editor. I was little astonished at my wife bringing 



me such things. I did not like to plant them, nor to remon- 

 strate either, seeing as we hadn't been married long. I had 

 been taught by select paragraphs in the newspapers that every- 

 thing was in knowing how to manage a wife. I thought I could 

 manage this thing pretty well, and this was what I done. 

 Looking over a Patent Ofiiee report 1 saw a magnificent coloured 

 plate of a magnificent kind, the Peabody seedling, which accord- 

 ing to the account given by the government officials was to be 

 the alltobedesircdin this delicious fruit. I sent away twenty 

 dols. fur Peabody plants, and when they came threw away the 

 Albanjs, trusting my wife would never know the difference, and 

 that I .'ihould not have to blush when our friends stayed to tea for 

 setting such vulgar things as Albanys before them. But alas ! 

 When the time for fruit came around the pesky things didn't 

 bear any worth speaking of, and my wife " could not under- 

 stand it." " Dear," says she one evening, looking suspiciously 

 at the bed, " I think there must be some mistake here. These 

 can't be the Wilson. They always bore, and yet how can it be 

 else, for I dug up the plants myself and gave you?" " It is 

 queer," says I, reddening a little, " Meehan [Editor of Anuricaii 

 Gardcmr's Mniithbj] says (I had just been reading an old Agri- 

 cultural paper) Strawberries will run into all sorts of kinds." 

 "Meehan! fiddle-sticks" says she, "who's he.' They never 

 ran about that way in our garden." 



I never heard her talk so commonplace before, and was about 

 to reply in good style, when she picked up a small berry and 

 said with vehemence, " I believe there has been another kind 

 planted. We always have hard work to get the ' hull ' off 

 the Albany ; with this thing's long neck the ' hull ' can hardly 

 be made to stick on." I did not know as much as she, and I 

 began to feel it, and as I had taken your name in vain to save me, 

 and that didn't do, I thought best "to tell her all ! Well, if yon 

 ever saw such a storm ! For the attempted deception I beUeve 

 I have never been truly forgiven, but I plead so hard about 

 " educating the pubUo taste," that I think it consoled her for 

 the loss of Strawberries that year. On the main point, how- 

 ever, I made up my mind not to give in. I have since 

 been buying all the new kinds as they have severally been 

 brought forward to "educate the public taste," but somehow we 

 don't get many fruit, and my wife says it is hard she cannot 

 have plenty of Strawberries, as her mother always has in her 

 garden ; I think it is hard also, but yet I think in view of the 

 immense advantages to the public of maintaining a high stan- 

 dard of public taute, better do without Strawberries altogether 

 than encourage such vile things as the Wilson Strawberry. 



Of course I went into Grape-growing. Canadian Chief, 

 Brinckle, Rebecca, Delaware, Clara, and some others, came 

 strongly recommended by the educators of pubhc taste. I sent 

 a draft for one hundred dols. up the Hudson, so as to be sure to 

 get the "genuine thing." My wife asked me to add Concord, but 

 I showed her the report of a committee who went to Boston to 

 see it, and the members had all caught the diptheria by eating 

 the berries ; I also pointed out that the Editor of the Horticul- 

 turist had vetoed it ; that lona Island, the centre of Grape 

 knowledge, had "pronounced" against it; and indeed no one 

 but that little fellow Freas, of the Germantoirn Telegraph, had 

 said a word in its favour. This last brought on another storm, 

 for I did not know that she thought so much of Freas. " His 

 ' household department ' was the best thing a-going ; she had 

 had the paper since she could read and always would, and she 

 had seen more fruit in his garden in one year than she feared 

 she would ever see in mine." I did not like " mine " instead of 

 ours, but I swallowed that. The end was I agreed to let her 

 have Concord to put about the house, over the pump, and along 

 the back fences. She has plenty of fruit such as it is, as Mr. 

 Mead happily expresses it in your review, but " one remove 

 above a fox Grape." But, although I had to wait fivo years 

 before I got a Delaware bunch, and it has not yet done near as 

 well as I know it will after age gives strength to the Vine, and, 

 although the others have died out altogether, I would not give 

 one bunch of Delawiire for ten thousand pound weight of Con- 

 cord, and I am sure the educated tastes of your readers will agree 

 with me. 



So wo have gone on for about ten years, wife and I. She is 

 an excellent housekeeper. Though so deficient in the refined 

 taste for good fruits, she manages to have the table always 

 filled with good things prepared in some way ; but as she knows 

 my hostility to the vulgar varieties of fruits, I am sure she 

 uses none of them. In the garden I only gave way to her in 

 one single thing. After long coaxing I agreed to plant fifty 

 Philadelphia Raspberries two years ago. I hated to give the 

 price I did for them, especially as it was boldly announced that 



