312 



JOURNAL OF HOETICDLTUEB AND COTTAGE GARDENEE. 



[ October 24, 1867. 



these Bignatnres at a stroke. Nor is this renovation really 

 needed. The late Mr. Anthony Morris, who held that part of 

 the garden containing the snmmer-honse (which was divided 

 many years since from the dwelling-house, in which in all 

 probability most of Cowper's prodactions were penned), took a 

 just pride in keeping it in good order; and having been to 

 Olney daring the past month, I can testify to the fact that it is 

 far from being in the ruinous condition that might be imagined 

 from the statements made respecting it. If, however, it is 

 thonght desirable to raise a memorial to Cowper — and I as an 

 ' Olney boy ' certainly think so — why should not the suggestion 

 thrown out some time since be adopted, and a memorial hall 

 erected ? Places that are identified in any way with celebrated 

 men generally have something to show for the fact ; and why 

 should the town where ' Newton preached and Cowper sang ' be 

 worse off in this respect than others similarly situated ? The 

 inhabitants of Olney are not deficient in public spirit ; and as 

 the Earl of Dartmouth, who is the Lord of the Manor, has made 

 a good start by offering £100, I venture to hope that ere long 

 something tangible will be accomplished. The vicar and the 

 ministers of the Independent and I5aptist chapels would, I feel 

 sure, be found quite ready to co-operate, and I would suggest 

 that any one wishing to aid in the work would do well to com- 

 municate with those gentlemen. Mr. Osbom, the present 

 occupier of the garden in which the summer-house stands, and 

 Mr. John Sleath, the occupier of ' Cowper's House,' are at all 

 times most obliging in their attention to visitors who may be 

 desirous of seeing these classic spots. — W. H. C." 



^TN'ES AND YIXE EOKDERS. 



TouK correspondent "H. S." has shown in his attacks on 

 my little work on the Yine a persistency that is worthy of a 

 better cause. He seems disappointed that I have not replied 

 to him ; he should not be so, when he considers that he makes 

 his attack from behind a couple of consonants that may or 

 may not be even his initials. Masked though he be, and de- 

 serving the fate of all who have recourse to false colours when 

 they attack an unoffending neighbour, I have no wish to ap- 

 pear discourteous even to " H. S. :" therefore I take up my 

 pen once more, not with the view of following him into all the 

 strange latitudes in which he deUghts to wander, but to meet 

 him on those points where he imagines he impinges on what 

 I have previously written. 



I may here remark that " H. S." made no reply worthy of 

 the name to my article in the Journal of March ■21st of this 

 year. He was forced to admit the truth of what I said about 

 the Grapes of his favourite climates on the Continent being 

 much inferior to those grown by me and thousands of others in 

 hothouses in Britain; hs denies, however, that what I said 

 was correct when I wrote of the Vines in the valley of the 

 Volga and of those on the south banks of the Khiiae, that 

 during certain periods of their growth, and certains portions of 

 the day, they are subject to a higher temperature than I re- 

 commend for hothouses. I appeal to all conversant with such 

 matters, and who have in this country ever tested the heat of 

 a hot summer day against a south wall, as to which of us is 

 the more likely to be correct in this matter ; and be it remem- 

 bered that the banks of the Ehine are little else than gigantic 

 walls. I quote from an eminent British pomologist, who has 

 recently been examining the French vineyards, and who writes 

 to me from Paris as follows : — There is a great mistake made 

 by your literary opponent, in my opinion, when he takes the 

 mean temperature of climate in illustration of his arguments 

 in favour of lower temperatures than you give for ripening the 

 Grape ; why, in the south of France (in Languedoc), the direct 

 rays of the sun beat for days on the bare skin of the Grapes 

 •when the temperature is upwards of 100°, and there the Muscat 

 of Alexandria ripens in the open air." Does this Grape do so 

 in mid or northern France ? Certainly not, for in 1861 I saw 

 Muscats at the great show in Paris in September that were 

 little else than bags of sour water. 



" H. S." justly charges me with having written in the first 

 page of my book that a temperate chmate is the most suitable 

 for the cultivation of the Grape ; but he entirely overlooks or 

 shuts his eyes to the obvious fact, that I wrote of the cultiva- 

 tion of Grapes in hothouses, and not in the open au-, which 

 makes all the difference, and makes what I wrote perfectly 

 consistent with the temperatures I recommended ; and I prove 

 then: necessity by again challenging " H. S." to produce Grapes 

 either grown in tiiia country or in a foreign one at his tempe- 



ratures equal to those I will produce grown at mine. True, he 

 tells us that Eshcol still produces Grapes in bunches of 10 lbs. 

 and I'i lbs. weight ; but that proves Uttle or nothing in reference 

 to the question at issue. Grapes nearly double these weights 

 have been grown in hothouses in this country. It does not, 

 however, appear that " H. S." has approached that standard 

 yet; for he writes, "I have hut httle to say about my own 

 Vines. The photograph of the roof of one of my houses, and 

 the two small bunches I have sent to the Editors of the Journal, 

 will be more satisfactory than anything I could write." The 

 Editors, like cautious men. are, however, ominously silent 

 either as to the excellence of the small bunches or the beauty 

 of the photograph. 



" H. S." is quite unjust when he attempts to fix me to a 

 mean temperature between what I recommend the house should 

 be shut up at in the afternoon, and the general temperatures 

 I recommend. The maximum only lasts for an hour or so, 

 whereas the minimum is the general temperature for twenty- 

 three hours out of twenty-four. Any one with the least prac- 

 tical knowledge of such matters will see this at a glance ; but 

 " H. S." is either willingly blind to it, or he has too little 

 discrimination in such matters to enable him to mark the ob- 

 vious difference. 



To say in the face of the experience of thousands that it 

 must be injurious to a house of Muscats at midsummer, to be 

 shut up at a sun temperature of 90° or 95°, with a view to 

 husbanding that most genial of aU heats for an hour or two in 

 the evening, while the paths are sprinkled with water, implies 

 no small amount of temerity. I have seen Vines in a house 

 during a vei-y hot day with a dry east wind, have their foliage 

 quite flaccid from the great demand for moisture made on them, 

 yet the leaves would become quite firm and crisp half an hour 

 after the Vines were shut up as I have recommended they 

 should be. 



" H. S." in the Journal of the 17th of this month, after 

 giving a quotation to prove that there were Vines in Juda;a eo 

 large, that foals and asses' colts might with safety be bound to 

 them (I can find him plenty of Vines in this country he might 

 with safety tie a horse to), falls foul of my works in no 

 measured terms ; but happUy he gives me half the gardeners 

 in the country as companions in error — therefore, I am per- 

 fectly ready to accept the position assigned to me. Amongst 

 the charges brought against me in this article of his is, that I 

 recommend a period of perfect rest for the Vine ; he ridicules 

 the idea, and closes by stating that " rest can add nothing to 

 its maturity," and that while the leaves are " stUl green," it 

 is in the " best possible condition to support a new growth."' 

 This doctrine would startle Dr. Lindley, were he in life. At 

 page 507 of his " Theory of Horticiiltm-e," he wrote with his 

 usual perspicuity, " A gardener is said to rest a plant when 

 he exposes it to a condition in which it cannot grow, and which 

 is analogous to its winter state. For many parts of gardening, 

 especially what relates to forcing, and the management of 

 exotic plants, this is a subject of first importance." At page 

 511, after showing that, from one cause or other, plants in all 

 parts of the world have, and require a period of rest, he writes, 

 " It is, therefore, a condition necessary to the well-being of a 

 plant, not to be overlooked under any circimistances whatever, 

 and there cannot be any really good gardening where this is not 

 attended to in the management of plants under glass." And 

 again he writes, " The way in which the physical powers of ve- 

 getation are aiTected by this, has been already explained, and 

 in practice it has been found a point of the utmost consequence. 

 The early fruit gardener draws the Vines out of his vinery, 

 and takes the sashes from his Peach and other forcing-houses 

 when the artificial season of gi'owth is over, in order to prepare 

 them for the duty of a succeeding season." What does "H. S." 

 say to this :' Modesty well becomes a tyro in the presence of a 

 veteran like Dr. Lindley. 



" H. S." becomes all but furious at my having written that a 

 Vine can have a quantity of stored-up sap in it. What says 

 Dr. Lindley on this subject ? At page 2G of the work already 

 quoted, he writes, while showing that the roots of plants are 

 never perfectly at rest, though the top is, unless when the soil 

 they are in is frozen, " The whole tissue of the plant will, 

 therefore, become distended with fluid food by the return of 

 spring, and the degree of distension will be in proportion to the 

 length and mUdness of the previous winter. As the new shoots 

 of spring are vigorous or feeble in proportion to the quantity 

 of food that may be prepared for it, it follows that the longer 

 the period of rest from growth the more vigorous the vegetation 

 of a plant will become when once renewed, if that period is not 



