160 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ February 13, 1S73. 



Treatment of Vines (G. B. li.). — The outside border, in which a portion 

 of the roots of your Vines are, should have been covered with some ferment- 

 ing material at the time the house was started. You had better put on a 

 Fullieient depth of leaves or other litter to cause a gentle heat. To have the 

 Grapes ripe in June, a nearly unifoi-m night temperature of C5- should be 

 kept up, letting the houee rise by day to 70'-', or with sun heat to 75'^. Vt'e 

 never syringe the Vines after the buds have started freely. A moist atmo- 

 ephere is maintained by syringing or sprinkling the paths and surface of the 

 borders twice a-day, and also from troughs filed or cast on the hot-water pipes. 

 "WTiilst the Grapes are iu fiower the evaporating troughs should bo dry, and a 

 rather higher temperature ought to be kept up. As soon as the flowering 

 period is over the troughs should be again supplied with water, and a night 

 temperature of es^'be kept up until the Grapes show signs of colouring. 



Grafting Vines {A Constant Reader). — The best time to graft Vinea is 

 when the young shoots have grown 2 or 3 inches. The grafts should have 

 been previously started into growth to the eitent of about half au inch. 



Fruiting Eriouotrya japonica (Idem). — We do not thint your seedling 

 plant will fruit in an 11-inch pot. It should be grafted on the Whitethorn. 

 Xou might still retain your seedling plant, but we advise you to graft one if 

 jou wish to fruit it. 



Camellia Flower-bdds Falling [Monitor). — Most likely the falliug-off 

 of the Camellia buds is owing to an unhealthy statu of the roots. This will 

 also take place from the roots being too dry or too moist, especially in such 

 weather as we have had of late. There is another cause more fatal — escape 

 irom gas-pipes ; but if that had been the case the point of the bud would hare 

 suffered first, whilst yours is quite healthy. Our experience would say, Ou no 

 account admit gas pipes into plant houses. The mere burning of the k&s is 

 had enough, but it is nothing compared to having couductiug pipes passing 

 through the houses. Hardly any joint will prevent bad impure gas Irom 

 ■SBcapiug. 



Changing Fluk to Stbtb [H. A.]. — We say in yoiir case, Let well alone* 

 As the flue is there keep it there, at least for the present. You need not 

 waste room by your flue, as you could have a shelf or trellis-table over it. The 

 slowness with which the flue heats may depend on the thickness of the flue 

 or the arrangement of the furnace. In the latter case there is often much 

 wastL* of heat by having the fire-bars close to the fumace-door. There ought 

 to be a dumb-plate next the duor of from 9 to 12 inches wide. Without that, 

 much of the heat goes to the stokehole instead of along the flue. The flue, 

 iiaving so much larger a surface, will keep tho heat longer than a mere stove, 

 but the keeplng-up the heat for a long time with little fuel depends very much 

 ou keeping the fumace-duor and ashpit-duor shut, with just the smallest 

 opening in the latter to admit a very little air. Whenever we see a furnace- 

 door oi,>eu after the fire is set going, it always speaks to us of waste, though 

 sometimes in emergencies that must be submitted to, as the cold air passing 

 over the glowing fuel cools it, cools the boiler, cools the flue, &c. What air 

 ■is required for combustion of fuel — we pass over combustion of smoke — ought to 

 come thruugh the grate sashbars, and the draught must be regulated there. 

 One reason why we advise you to keep your flue for the present, is simply 

 that a brick stove in your small house if made now, would have to stand the 

 fcest part of a month before you could give it a chance to be used fairly. How- 

 ■ever, if you resort to the usual mode of preventing dust, a small brick stove 

 would heat your little house, 8 by lu feet, admirably, and you could do all the 

 attendance inside. When you speak of a stove 9 inches square we presume 

 jou mean the firebox lined with firebrick. The rest of the stove may be 

 built of good bricks — say 28 inches square, and 36 inches in height. The 

 j-egulatiou uf the draught at the ashpit-door will enable you to keep most of 

 the heat iu the bricks. 



Synon^'MES (A. C). — Eritrichum is the same as Myosotis. Xiphion tingi- 

 tanum was discovered near Tangiers in 1825, and figured and described in the 

 ** Botanical Magazine" of August last. Hyacinthus eandicans is figured in 

 Mr. Wilbou Saunders' " Refugium Botanicum." It is a Cipe bulb i-cquiring 

 & greenhouse temperature. 



Flotvering Bocgaintillea glabra in June (A Yojing Plantsman). — 

 Keep the plant dry, and about the middle of March start it in gentle heat, 

 giving it the benefit of a tan bed or other bottom heat. Eepot the plant 

 previously if it be needed, and do what pinning is required. Ihis should be 

 confined to cutting out the old shoots and removing the unripe portions of 

 the young shoots. These, we presume, aie ripe and hard ; if not, the chance 

 of lioweriog is small. The bottom heat should bo 75^, the top heat 55"^ to 

 60'-" at night, increasing to fiu° or G5- at night in about a month, with a rise 

 toy day of 5'^ to lU^, and 15° to 20'^ with suu and abundance of air. Shift the 

 plaut into its blooming pot in April, and early iu May it will have made a 

 good growth. Keep it fully exposed to light, and do not let the soil becomo 

 «o dry as to affect the foliage, and it will very probably show flower. It will 

 then need to bo forwarded with plenty of heat and a moist atmosphere, not, 

 however, syringing overhead. If likely to flower too early, place it in a house 

 with a lower temperature, and afford more heat if it appear to be backward. 



Flowering Medinilla magnifica in June (Id^m). — The plant should 

 i)e kept moderately dry up to the middle of April, and then moister, and this 

 will soon cause the swelling of the flower-buds, which come from the base 

 of the leaves at the points of last year's gro\\th. The plant, if not in a small 

 ■pot, need not be repotted; but, if nccossai-y, this may be done, and in thetem- 

 ^erature above named it will flower at the time you vnsh, though if it show for 

 bloom earlier it must be retarded by placing it in a lower temperature. To 

 have plants in flower at a stated time requires the exercise of considerable 

 judgment, much depending on the condition of the plants. 



Geranium Leaves Spotted IS. M. H.).— The leaves are spotted with 

 mildew, due, we think, to the plant having been kept in a moist and ill- 

 ventilated atmosphere with a low temperature. Give more air, and if you 

 cannot give more heat without interfering with the well-doing of other plants, 

 keep it drier at the roots. More heat with air would be the best remedy. 

 With brighter weather the plaut will outgrow the evil. We are not quite sure 

 of the name, but we think it is Pillar of Beauty. 



Hand-drill (A, B. G.). — That advertised in our columns, called Le Butt's, 

 would suit you. 



Namks of Plants [Mac). — Wo are willing to name your Mosses, but 

 you will gain far more knowledge if you work them out for yourself. Your 

 Ko. 1, for example (Polytrichum commune), could very readily be determined ; 

 2. Eacomitrium aciculare ; 3, Leskea sericea; 4, Hypnum commutaium. 

 {B. E.). — 1, Pteris cretica; 2, Nephrolepis exaltata ; 3, Selaijiuella Braunii. 

 (C. H. A.). — 1, Gynmogramma ochracea; 2, Ncphiolepis cordifolia; 3, Adi- 

 antum formosum; 4, A. lethiopicum ; 5 and G, Indeterminable. (J. V.). — 

 1, Coccoloba platyclada; 2 and 3, Adiautum hispidulum. {S. M, .ff.).— In- 

 determinable. 



POULTET, BEE, KM) PIGEON OHEOKEOLE. 



EFFEEVESCING AND OTHEE BEITISH WINES. 



A CORRESPONDENT, a fewvTeeks since, requested to be informed 

 how to make effervescing rhubarb wine. I have waited in 

 trust that some other person, more experienced than myself, 

 would send you the desired information. Finding this up to 

 the present not to be the case, allow me to refer you back to 

 No. -129, page 409, where you will find my minutiae of mauufacture. 

 One cannot invent new processes or produce fresh objects of 

 sustenance under long periods of time — at least I cannot; and I 

 have nothing to take away from the advice referred to, and but 

 little to add to it, further than that I have recently been in corre- 

 spondence with an enthusiastic amateur British wine-maker, 

 who informs me he has lately made a compound infusion of pine- 

 apple and elder flowers for flavouring and giving bouquet to 

 some of his wines. I should think it would ! In the days 

 whcu I confined myself to rhubarb wine, I used to submerge 

 dried elder flowers in the barrel as soon as it had done working, 

 and the wine was racked of its first grounds, when the wine was 

 allowed to qualify-off the crude first fiavour of the flowers by 

 standing in the barrel a couple of years before it was bottled. 

 Those monks of some monastery or other on the Swiss borders, 

 who (secretly) gained centuries of applause for their peculiar 

 '* brand," by merely adapting the elderliower flavouriag to 

 their wines, might have smacked their lips with envy on the 

 discussion of a bottle of my simple home-made. But keeping 

 the wine so long in the cask destroys the effervescing quality. 

 "What I have been trying to attain since I last wrote on this 

 subject, is to give a proper champagne tint to my effervescing 

 rhubarb andgooseberry wine. I cannot master it, try what I may, 

 by logwood, cochineal, itc, for the tint will ripen oft more or 

 less of a pale or dark sherry shade, instead of a faint pale violet, 

 or Madame Kivers Kose-colour. Perhaps some of your clever co- 

 adjutors could enlighten us on our way ; for the above wine with 

 a proper tint would be an acquisition worth knowing anent a 

 " Veuve Cliquot," or somebody or other's "reviver." Last season 

 I made a gallon of colouring juice from those little black cherries 

 usually so plentifully hawked about — Foisted cherries they call 

 them in my county, Suffolk — and added it to thirty gallons of 

 rhubarb and gooseberry wine, but with no better success than 

 with the drugs. I have also tried highly-coloured Esperione 

 Grape and other wines, and other Hquids which I am now going 

 to mention in connection with my grape wine, all to no purpose, 

 and I fear I must give it up and stick to dame Nature's natural 

 appearances in the matter. 



Now I am upon the subject of home-made wine, if I do not 

 touch upon wliat I have been doing in progress with my paper, 

 it would be something like the play of Hamlet with the charac- 

 ter of Hamlet left out. 



I have taken to add one-third in proportion of the Muscat of 

 Alexandria grown on the open wails to two-thirds of Royal 

 Muscadine Grapes as an effervescing grajie wine — a great im- 

 provement indeed upon the wine made totally from the Musca- 

 dines. It does away with the peculiar smoky twang attached to 

 the latter grape in its ripenese, and which never loses itself iu 

 the bond fide wine. 



Last year and the year before my Esperione Grapes did not 

 colour well, though quite sufficiently so for an effervescing pink 

 champagne ; but we prefer our Esperione as drawn from the wood 

 two or three years in cask, and of a good porty colour. Well, two 

 years ago I was looking over my seedling potatoes at Bedfont, 

 and side by side with them was a nursery plantation of the broad 

 hoUy-leaved berberis, loaded with its handsome bunches of blue- 

 black berries, on which the birds were carousing. I had a suspi- 

 cion my Esperiones would not be up to their mark of colour by the 

 next vintage time, and it struck me forcibly that those berries 

 could be utilised as a colouring matter for the wine. A con- 

 sultation with Mr. Alex. Dean soon decided that some should be 

 sent to me, and Mr. Dean has favourably impressed our honour- 

 able and reliable Fruit Committee on the feasibility of their 

 concoction into excellent jam. I made two gallons of colouring 

 juice from the berberis, just as I proceed iu working the juice of 

 the Grape, and put it to thirty gallons of the Esperione wine 

 after its first racking-off, and I find it makes a splendid colour- 

 ing for it, and adds also to the bouquet. This is a first-rate idea 

 for your wine-making subscribers, and the berberis wine, as we 

 may call it, is really very nice and palatable of itself. I have 

 again tliis season made two gallons of it to add to tliirty gallons 

 of my Esperione. Last year I also made three gallons of ripe 

 elderberry juice, and worked it exactly as for my other wines 

 as a coloiuing matter for the Esperione. I added it to thirty 

 gallons of the latter, when the fermentation had nearly ceased. 

 It has giveu it a fine colour indeed, but, as in the case of tie 

 elder flowers submerged in the rhubarb wine, an elder smack 

 maintains itself too strongly to be agreeable at present. I hope 

 time will rectify the crudity as in the case of the elder flowers, 



