Aglil 3, 1866. ] 



JOUBNAIi OP HOBTICULTDEE AND COTTAGE GABDEXEE. 



253 



browm. Now reduce the laterals gradually, diminish the sup- 

 ply of water, and give more air and a temperature of 60" by 

 night, and from 85° to 90° by day with sun, and 7o° without it, 

 and the wood will soon become of the colour of amber, and be 

 as brittle as glass. Early iu June place the Vines with the 

 pots en their sides close to a south wall, and on Midsummer- 

 day strip off the foUage, then prime them. After pruning set 

 the pots upright on boards, and not on their sides, and after 

 allowing them to remain thus for six weeks, they may be 

 placed iu a house with a temperature of 60° at night, and 

 which is kept very moist and' rather close ; they will soon 

 break freely, showing fruit from almost every eye. Now, these 

 \Huea, or others of this description, if kept in the house until 

 midsummer, will have the wood even better ripened, and if 

 then placed at the foot of a south wall will go to rest, and be 

 fit for forcing so as to have fruit ripe in March, which is much 

 more dilficult to obtain than iu Januaiy ; for almost any strong 

 Vine, if well furnished' with sound, plump eyes by the end of 

 June or July, if it then receive a sudden check from the leaves 

 and laterals being taken off suddenly, will start most of the 

 principal eyes, and the shoots from these will mostly show 

 fruit at the fifth joint, which, under favourable conditions of 

 heat and moisture, wUl ripen at a late period of the year. 



Another batch of the non-fruiting canes being placed in 

 heat and grown oc iu a house having a temperature of 50° at 

 night to begin with, and an increase of 5° fortnightly up to 

 65P, wiU, with the treatment before-named — viz., shifting into 

 1'2-inch pots when the pots become full of roots, and into 15 or 

 18-inch pots in April if stajted in January, or in May if started 

 in February, have strong and weU-ripeued canes by August 

 in the one case, and by September in the other. The first are 

 calculated to ripen with greater certainty a crop of fruit in 

 April and May, and the second in May and June, than those 

 radsed from eyes in the same months as the above were started. 

 The Vines that were raised in a greenhouse in the previous 

 year are to be shaken out and placed in nine-inch pots by the 

 middle of February, or not later than the beginning of March. 

 These, with the soil kept moist, will shoot strongly at the end 

 of March, and are to be trained to the roof of the house at 

 1 foot from the glass. The first laterals should be stopped at 

 the first leaf, and this continuously until the point of the shoot 

 is taken out at the height of 7 or 9 feet ; and the uppermost 

 laterals for a distance of 3 feet or so downwards are to be 

 elosely stopped to one leaf at every succeeding growth. The 

 laterak situated lower down should be allowed to grow if they 

 will. In June give the Vines their final shift into 12, 15, or 

 le-inch pots, according- to their strength. Syringe them in 

 the evening, and never allow them to suffer from want of water, 

 and give liquid manure at every alternate watering in July and 

 August. Under these conditions, and with a moist atmosphere, 

 they will make strong canes by September, when they are, after 

 the last week, to have no more water than is sufficient to keep 

 the leaves from flagging, and the laterals are to be reduced by 

 degrees', and finally cut off close to the cane in the beginning 

 of October. These Vines will mostly bear fruit in the follow- 

 ing season. 



If bushes are desired the ca/ne ia to have a strong stake placed 

 by it in the pot, 3 feet long for two-feet bushes, and longer for 

 those of greater height ; three-feet bushes are, in my opinion, 

 high enough. The stake must be 1 foot in the soil, and if it 

 be charred a httle it will neither be so apt to rot, nor will fungus 

 be so likely to attack it, as would otherwise be the case. To 

 this stake the cane.is to be loosely tied, and when it has gro-wn 

 to the top of the stick take out the point. The laterals will 

 then break strongly ; stop them at the first joint or leaf, and 

 pick out the eyes from the canes for a distance of 6 inches from 

 the sou. Above this point wiU be seven or eight leaves, with 

 eyes in their axils, and laterals coming from the sides of them. 

 Pinch in the three uppermost laterals to one leaf as they are 

 made, and let those below grow and hang at freedom. In June 

 give the Vines 11-inch pots, and throughout their growth keep 

 them near the glass. The laterals are to be removed in Sep- 

 tember by degrees, and take care to give no water beyond that 

 needed to keep the leaves from flagging. These canes will fruit 

 another year, but are not so good nor certain as canes cut-in 

 to eight joints, not counting the three lowest, which are mostly 

 embryo eyes, which ought to be picked out with the point of a 

 knife. This should be dome immediately after the leaves have 

 fallen. 



We have now, Ist, Strong canes raised in Januaay and by 

 September fit for forcing to produce fruit in the following .ipril 

 and May. 2nd, Canes raised from eyes in Febmary, and by 



October ripe enough and strong enough to afford fruit in July ; 

 or if started later, in August and September. 3rd, Canes two 

 years old for fruiting in January and February. 4th, Two- 

 year-old canes for fruiting in March. 5th, Canes one and two 

 years old for fruiting in September, the fruit hanging up to 

 Christmas, or March if needed; and, 6th, Vines for bushes 

 for cool-house cultirre in pots. All these I will notice in future 

 articles. — d. Abbey. 



MORE GOSSIP ABOUT ROSE-&ROWING. 



I A3t much obliged to your correspondent Mr. A. H. Kent for 

 Iris reply to my oommnnication in your Number of December 

 •26th, on the subject of using the Manetti stock as a means of 

 getting Roses on their own roots. I have derived some valu- 

 able hints from that reply ; and if it wiU not be trespassing on 

 his kindness, or that of some other of your correspondents, I 

 shall be very glad to have farther information on one or two 

 points aUuded to therein. 



First, as I shall, of course, be very glad to arrive at the 

 knowledge of the form of P«09e-growing hkely to be best suited 

 to my soU, through the speedier process of benefiting by the 

 experience of others rather than by the more tedious one of 

 proving this by my own experiments, I herewith send what I 

 call a popular description of the nature of the soil of my garden, 

 premising that I do not possess such a knowledge of agricultural 

 chemistry as to enable me to give a scientifically or chemically 

 correct description. The soil of my garden is heavy, but in- 

 clined to be boggy or dark in colour, rather than clayey or red. 

 It 13 shallow, not being more than from 21 to 3 feet deep, and 

 at that depth rests upon a particularly bad subsoil, consisting 

 of clay and gi-avel, the water running fi'om which leaves a 

 peouharly rusty-looking' deposit. When from any cause the 

 gi'eater part of the roots of any of om- fruit trees find their way 

 down into this subsoil, the tree speedily dies, the decay appa- 

 rently beginning at the extremities of the youngest and thinnest 

 branches. These die a-way in lengths of fi'om 6 to 12 inches 

 in a single season, and in two or three seasons lead to the 

 death of the tree altogether. I find I can grow Broccoli and 

 Cauliflowers, and indeed the whole Cabbage tribe to perfection, 

 but have hitherto failed to grow good CaiTots, for which I 

 expect my soil is too rich and heavy. I imagine, also, that it 

 will prove too good for the Manetti, unless I can reduce its 

 over-luxuriance as a stock by annual removal or root-pruning. 

 I fancied last year that my plants made too much wood, and 

 produced much fewer blossoms that they ought to have done ; 

 but as the ground was a 'virgin soU to Eoses and liberally 

 manured, this tendency may be corrected after two or three 

 years' gro'wth in the saoie situation. When I describe it as a 

 virgin soil to Roses, I mean that other plants — those for bed- 

 ding-out, for instance — had been grown upon that part now 

 occupied by my Eoses, but not Roses. It was carefully and 

 fully drained about four years since. 



As some proof of the character of my soil as to richness, I 

 may state that some of the free-growing Hybrid China and 

 Bourbon Eoses, as Blauii No. 2, Charles Lawson, etc., have 

 made shoots of 6 and 8 feet long in the first season after budding 

 — that is, they were budded in the end of August or the be- 

 ginning of September, 18G4, and made this growth during the 

 following year. Mr. Kent speaks of " well-budded Manetti 

 plants in nine cases out of ten maldug strong shoots the first 

 year," and again that " if budded early in the season a plant 

 is formed at once, which may be removed in the autumn." 

 Would he kindly say how early he thinks might be desirable 

 to bud the Manetti in this neighbourhood (Shropshire) ? I 

 have hitherto budded in the last week of August or first week 

 iu September. 



I also owe many thanks to your well-known correspondent, 

 the Rev. W. P. Eadelyffe, for his remarks in No. 250 on my 

 communication about Eoses published in your Journal of De^ 

 cember 26th ; and I am sm-e that he, cr Mr. Kent, or botb, 

 would confer an obligation on many of your readers if they 

 would give some plain and precise directions as to the propa- 

 gation and budding of the Manetti. I do not know how it has 

 been with others, b'ut I have found some difficulty this year in 

 procuring Manetti stocks. One of our principal growers, of 

 whom I ordered sis dozen, supplied me with two dozen, with 

 an apology that the demand was so great, that he was himself 

 a buyer instead of haTing any to sell. Therefore it is desirable, 



if not necessary, for amateurs to be able to propagate the 



Manetti stock themselves if they wish to experimentalise ■with 

 it to any extent. 



