March 13, 1S66. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICDLTUEB AND COTTAGE GAilDENKB. 



195 



insects and the summer heat ; but I am bound in justice to 

 say that the others have made very good stocks, and the Apples 

 grafted on them have done well. — J. H. 



THE COILING OF "SINES. 



It was not till I had waited some time after the appearance 

 of Mr. Eivers's illustrated communication on this question that 

 I took it up. I wished, and waited to see, others offer their 

 experience, as I was well aware that many could state impor- 

 tant facts very similar to those I related at page 83, and with 

 which Mr. Rivers deals in his usually acute way. 



Passing over the opinion of Mr. Rivers's venerable French 

 friend, upon whose experience, as it seems to me, and not on 

 his own, Mr. Rivers recommends so confidently the layering or 

 coiling of Vine stems, I will shortly refer to the remarks which 

 Mr. Rivers makes on the facts which I stated in my former 

 communication ; and this I do, not for the sake of inaugurating 

 a controversy with Mr. Rivers or any one else, but still further 

 to assist in bringing out what may be regarded as the soundest 

 practice on this not unimportant point of horticulture. I will 

 still leave the circumstances connected with the experiments I 

 have already related to be compared with Mr. Eivers's theory. 



He states that I " confound the coUing of the shoot of a 

 Vine lightly covered with soil with the layering of a Vine 

 deeply;"' but my comparison was not between the layering of 

 a shoot deeply, and another that had been or was to be lightly 

 covered. It was between those that I had layered 8 inches 

 deep and the directions given by Mr. Eivers's misprint to cover 

 them 10 inches deep, so that on that particular point I was 

 reasoning from premises furnished by what I supposed to be 

 his and my own figtires ; and from what I am about to state it 

 will appear that the correction of the misprint does not alter 

 the deductions or the correctness of the opinion formed in 

 the course of my own experience. 



Mr. Rivera asserts that to bury the stem of a Vine 8 inches 

 deep is to place it too deep to receive any benefit from those 

 grand sources of life — light and heat, consequently it puts forth 

 no roots. I will not here controvert the idea that light is more 

 favourable than darkness to the formation of roots, any further 

 than to say that I agree with our great physiologist in believing 

 that darkness is more favourable than light to the formation of 

 roots. Heat has, beyond all question, much influence in pro- 

 ducing roots, and in the case of the experiments I detailed this 

 only tends to strengthen the deductions that I made — namely, 

 that it is unnatural and injurious to layer the stems of Vines 

 in the soil. 



The Vines which I layered across the border from the back to 

 the front wall, and those I planted, and the stems of which 

 were layered from the centre of the inside border, where their 

 roots were fixed, to the front waU, were all layered in below the 

 hot-water apparatus, which runs 2 feet from the front wall. 

 Close to the surface of the 8 inches of soil which covered the 

 Vine stems rested the pipes. I need scarcely say that at the 

 point below the pipes the stems had by far the most warmth, 

 much more than where the whorl of roots was produced, close 

 to the cold front wall, yet this did not cause the stems to emit 

 roots where there was most heat, but where I conceive it to be 

 most natural — near the union of the Vine with the border. 

 Now, I have always found that Vines planted in the usual way 

 send their roots into the soil heated by the proximity of pipes 

 or flues, and in these cases at least Mr. Eivers's theory as to 

 the Vines being buried away from the influence of heat being 

 the cause why they did not emit roots on " every inch of stem " 

 does not hold good in my experience, for the roots were pro- 

 duced close to the front wall where the soil was coldest and 

 shaded from the rays of the sun. As to the greater amount 

 of light and heat which a Vine covered 2 inches deep with 

 fine soil receives over one covered 8 inches in the inside of 

 a warm vinery, I could not really determine ; nor does this 

 seem to be any more than a theory with Mr. Rivers. 



In reference to the other case of which Mr. Rivers says 

 " that the stems of the Vines were most probably too deeply 

 covered, and shaded from the direct rays of the sun by the front 

 wall : under such circumstances they could not put forth roots," 

 facts are very difierenl from surmises or guesses, for it was 

 just in the shade of the front wall that the strong whorl of 

 roots was produced, exactly below where the stems entered the 

 soil. My experiment with the pot Vines may be accepted as a 

 "great mistake" in the same sense that many other experi- 

 ments may be so termed ; at the same time I cannot, with my 



experience of the depth at which Vine roots will act, and act 

 vigorously, accept Mr. Eivers's theory in this case either. He 

 says that the results I stated arose from the roots being buried 

 to the depth of 15 inches, and the Vines were ruined by their 

 roots being placed out of the influence of light and heat. 

 Surely Mr. Bivers is not in earnest when he aSects to tell 

 Vine-growers that the roots of Vines wUl not act at a depth of 

 15 inches, because they are out of the influence of light and 

 heat ! I would simply ask if ever he ripened Grapes in April 

 from Vines having their roots entirely in an outside border 

 without bottom heat, and thatched over with a layer of dry 

 leaves and straw ? and if he has, whether he thinks under such 

 circumstances their roots were under the influence of light ? 

 But this is not aU, the border in which I plunged the pot Vines 

 in question was more than usually open, and heated from be- 

 neath with air-drains. 



As to roots not acting at a greater depth than 15 inches 

 I will leave that question to all those who have either put an 

 addition to the front of a Vine-border or lifted the roots of 

 Vines that have been planted for any length of time. Have 

 they not found them down 4 or 5 feet deep, where light and 

 heat from above could not have any influence on them ? The 

 reason of these Vines not doing well was not the wants of 

 which Mr. Rivers speaks ; and their not doing well cannot, from 

 anything that has come within the range of my experience, or 

 that Mr. Elvers has advanced, be attributed to the want of 

 light and heat at their roots. I feel perfectly confident that 

 had they been buried much deeper, but not having soil in con- 

 tact with their stems, they would have done as well as their 

 contemporaries. If roots of Vines are so fond of light why do 

 they not root up to it ? as they do when covered over deeply 

 with manure or leaves, stUl more ceiling them from light, 

 although they wiU not do so when the border is not mulched. 



I am inclined to look upon the coiUng as a delusion in more 

 respects than this. It is practised with the view of increasing 

 the roots of Vines ; but is not root-vigour more dependant on 

 the amount of healthy foliage that the Vine is allowed to make 

 than on burying in the ground what Nature designed should 

 climb into the air, and induce the emission of roots at fresh 

 points ? I feel convinced that if a fresh set of roots are thus 

 produced the old roots will be deserted in the long run ; and 

 if so, what has been gained ? Not anythi n g ; but the result 

 will be injurj- to the Vine, to say the least of it, for the lime 

 being. In the order of Nature the Vine wUl come to depend 

 on the roots formed at the junction of the Vine with the border, 

 thus proving the correctness of the theory that the descending 

 sap is interfered with by placing the liber of the stem where 

 only roots were intended. 



If I might suggest to Mr. Elvers that he leave a portion of 

 the Vines he proposes coiling as they are, for comparison with 

 those coiled, his experiment would then be much more satisfac- 

 tory, and if spared till the International, " may I be there to 

 see." This quotation prompts the thought that this hobby may 

 prove as unruly as .John Gilpin's horse. 



"With these remarks I leave this question in the hands of 

 others who may feel inclined to favour us with any experience 

 they have had, and leave future experiments to be related when 

 carried out to their results, as I purpose to do in the case of 

 some I am now making. — D. Thomson. 



MEARXS'S SYSTEM OF COILING YTKE SHOOTS. 



If I may judge from a short article in the "Florist and' 

 Pomologist " for this month, the coiling of a Tine shoot with- 

 out a root, after the system of Meams, which was much written 

 about some years ago, has been confounded with the coiling of 

 a rooted Vine. — T. R. 



[A drawing and description of Mr. Meams's " coiling system " 

 are in the " Vine Manual," published at our office.] 



NOMENCLATURE OF GARDEN PLANTS. 



Sh.uj, I be taken for a Goth if I plead the cause of the ladies, 

 the country gentleman, and the general pubUc, in favour of a 

 natural English system of nomenclature for all the vegetable 

 kingdom, instead of the present hybrid classical system ? 



Very few know the meaning of the names used, and I am 

 sure that equally appropriate scientific names could be devised 

 in our own tongue, while for all ordinary purposes the common 

 popular English names are sufficient. The puzzle caused to 

 most people by a seed or plant catalogue is immense ; and I see 



