396 



JOUKNAIj of HORTIODIiTOKE AND COTTAGE QABDENEB. 



; May 81, 1877. 



80 well, thongb in the e&me hands and nnder the same treat- 

 ment, may arise from the insertion of bad bads to begin 

 with. If in animals the blood runs out, and in budding fruit 

 by constant budding the strain becomes weak, why should it 

 not do BO in Rosea ? How many millions of buda have been 

 put in ; how many stocks raised from the far-back original 

 Eoee ? Do not they deteriorate from continual budding ? My 

 neighbour, Mr. W. Fletcher, one of the largest and most suc- 

 oessfpl Rose-growers in Surrey, is of opinion that some do. 

 For instance, Charles Lefebvre, Celine Forestier, and Geant 

 des Batailles are not nearly so good as they were years back. 

 I do hope that I may be mistaken, and that it is because newer 

 and better varieties put the old Roses iu the shade and crowd 

 them out of the catalogue. 



I fancy amateurs, as a rule, do not out-back their Koses 

 hard enough or thin them out sufficiently. I have seen many 

 plants like mops. If half the wood had been taken out and a 

 few strong young shoots left, they would throw much finer 

 blooms. I have nearly decapitated a few old Roses ; so hard 

 did I cut them that I was told by a friend that I had done for 

 them. Now they are throwing out vigorous shoots. Roses 

 should be lifted every four or five years, the roots pruned, and 

 some fresh soil, with a good mixture of cow and pig manure, 

 put in with them. 



My soil is a very stiff clay, so stiff that it has to be cut out 

 in large square blocks turned up edgeways for the sun and air 

 to act upon, when it may be broken up for use. In summer 

 it is mulched heavily to prevent cracking and being as hard 

 as pavement. It suits Briars most admirably, very few die ; 

 nearly all the buds inserted last season have succeeded. The 

 soil will not suit Manetti or own-root Roses. 



In my rosery in Kent I had, protected with Bracken, out all 

 the winter a few years back. Cloth of Gold, Triomphe de 

 Rennes, Rubens, Marie Van Houtte, Augnste Vacher, Belle 

 Lyonnaise, Belle Maconnaise, La Boule d'Or, Bougere, Cathe- 

 rine Mermet, Comte Taverna, David Pradel, Elise Sauvage, 

 Jaune d'Or, La Sylphide, Louisa de Savoie, Madame Camille, 

 Madame Dr. Tutte, Madame do St. Joseph, Madame Marie 

 Amand, Madame C. Berthod, Paotolus, Pauline Laboutc, 

 Socrate, Sombreuil, Souvenir d'un Ami, Souvenir d'Elise, Duo 

 de Magenta, Madame Caroline Kuster, Marie Ducher, Monsieur 

 Fartado, and Unique. Two or three weak plants I lost. The 

 above grew most vigorously the next summer, quite altering 

 my opinion that Tea Roses are so very tender and require so 

 much coddling during the winter. La Boule d'Or and Reiue 

 du Portugal had huge tight buds, but never opened-out iu the 

 open air. 



On looking over my Briar stocks (by the way, is it Briar or 

 Brier?), I find a few black sheep. The old hard brown stocks 

 throw the beat shoots. Orange fungus is showing itself. There 

 is nothing for it but stamping it out — i.e., destroying the stock 

 it is on. — Gboboe W. Jessop. 



VINE MANAGEMENT.— No. 1. 



On page 285 notes have been published relative to Vines 

 which have produced heavy crops of Grapes for thirty years, 

 and which are still improving in vigour. As these Vines have 

 been grown in the simplest possible manner and have produced 

 Grapes such as are iu general demand for ordinary dessert 

 purposes, and as the majority of growers desire similar produce 

 — that is, a maximum quantity of useful table Grapes with a 

 minimum expenditure in the way of preparation and manage- 

 ment — the system which has been adopted, plain as it is, or 

 rather on account of itj plainness, may be described as possibly 

 affording hints of guidance to some amateur cultivators. How 

 inexpensively the Grapes have been grown may be gathered 

 from the fact that no bones have been used in the borders and 

 no hot-water pipes employed for heating the houses. 



Prunino. — The Vines have been pruned on the short-spur 

 system generally, yet in con junction with a modification of 

 the " long rod " mode of training. That ia, so long as close 

 pruning produced satisfactory crops it was adopted, but imme- 

 diately signs of exhaustion were apparent young shoots were 

 tied-in much after the manner adopted in the pruning and 

 laying-in the young shoots of Peach trees. When this system 

 has been adopted with a Vine a young shoot has also been 

 selected and trained from the bottom to form a future main 

 rod. This primary shoot has had the best position possible 

 assigned it to render its growth satisfactory. At each winter 

 pruning the new rod has been shortened to a length of 3 to 

 5 feet according to its strength and the condition of the Vino 



generally, and when the new rod has reached the top of the 

 rafter the old one has been cut away ; but iu the meantime 

 the spurs on the old Vine had been removed and the buda 

 rubbed off in proportion as space and light were required for 

 the new rod and foliage, the lower portion of the old rod being 

 eventually denuded of all growing parts, so that when it has 

 been finally removed only the top portion of, say, 3 or 4 feet 

 has contained any young wood. Thus have the Vines been 

 renewed one after another as required, and without a blank in 

 the crop ever occurring. 



Disbudding. — In this mode of renovating Vines special at- 

 tention must be, and has been, paid to disbudding. The 

 results of a faltering hesitancy (which is ao common) in re- 

 moving superfluous buds in spring inevitably leads to over- 

 crowding of the foliage during the summer, to all sorts of Vine 

 ailments and unsatisfactory crops of Grapes. This matter waa 

 prominently alluded to on page 263 by " A Kitchen .Gab- 

 DENER," who, I happen to know, has had such high training 

 as a Vine-grower that falls to the lot of few men. He could 

 not have directed attention to a more important phase in Grape 

 culture than that of disbudding, nor at a more seasonable 

 time. There are scarcely any Vines that do not push from 

 three to five times the number of shoots in spring more than a 

 good cultivator would permit to remain. The removal of super- 

 fluous shoots may be gradual, extending over two or three 

 weeks, but those eventually remaining must be so thinly dis- 

 posed that every leaf can expand freely and receive the light 

 directly on every part of its surface. That has been the plan 

 adopted with the Vines in question. 



The measurable distances for leaving the shoots depends on 

 circumstances. If the foliage of the Vines is medium-sized — 

 say averaging 8 or 9 inches in diameter — and a large number 

 of moderate-sized bunches is the object in view, the shoots 

 may be trained about 15 inches apart ; but if the Vines are 

 very luxuriant, and the foliage is likely to expand to a foot in 

 diameter, and a limited number of large bunches are coveted, 

 then the lateral shoots should not be much nearer than 2 feet 

 from each other. They may be stopped at one, two, or three 

 leaves beyond the bunch according to space. The more foliage 

 a Vine produces the better it is, provided every leaf has light. 

 More failures in Vine-growing occur from overcrowding or 

 mismanagement of the foliage than from any other cause. 

 Plant a Vine in any good ordinary garden soil and it will grow 

 freely; cover it with glass, and provide a correct system of 

 management, and good Grapes- will follow ; but no elaborate 

 border — indeed nothing — can compensate for tangled shoots 

 and shaded leaves. 



I have arrived at those conclusions after a tolerably fair 

 share of practice, supplemented with much observation. I 

 think I have seen the best and the worst examples of Grape 

 culture in Britain, and while I have often found splendid crops 

 on Vines growing in unprepared borders — I mean the natural 

 soil with manurial additions — I have never seen good Grapes 

 on Vines when the foliage has been overcrowded, even when 

 the roots have been provided with a dainty and really excellent 

 compost of turfy loam, bones, &a. 



Cleanliness. — Another matter of considerable moment 

 which has been duly attended to in the continuously fruitful 

 thirty-year-old Vinea and still " improving " baa been that of 

 cleanliness. Without perfect cleanliness of the foliage there 

 cannot be good health. There must not only be freedom 

 from insects, especially red spider, but freedom from diity in- 

 crustations. As previously stated, red spider has never given 

 any trouble, neither does it cause any anxiety now, for the 

 atmospherical use of guano keeps the pest outside the houses. 

 As to unclean foliage in other respects it frequently arises 

 from two very opposite causes — namely, " raising a dust " in 

 the houses by sweeping ; and regularly syringing with water 

 apparently clean, yet leaving a deposit behind it. Someone 

 has truthfully said thnt " great results from little causes 

 spring ;" this applies to bad as well as to good issues. It is a 

 little matter, perhaps, to sweep the paths and stages of a 

 vinery half a dozen times each week, especially when the 

 work is done, as is often the case, by a " little " boy, who 

 each time only raises a "little" dust. The greatness of the 

 danger here lies in the smallness of its parts : separated, they 

 are trifles; united, an evil is created of no small magnitude. 

 Let all gardeners — all men — beware of the insidioua, almost 

 impalpable atoms of evil, and many a great danger will be 

 averted. I am quite certain that when I was a " little garden- 

 ing boy" I did about as much injury to the Vines by care- 

 lessly " sweeping out the houses " as the gardener did good by 



