November 11, 1869. ] 



JOUBNAL OF HOKTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEB. 



381 



16 to 20 feet long, and 2J inches in girth," seems incredible. I 

 should also be obliged by being informed of the variety making 

 such an extraordinary growth, not of length, but thickness of 

 cane. LaJy Downe's, notwithatandina Alicante and Barbarossa 

 having larger banches, is, to my eye, by far the best; it has a 

 noble appearance, and what is wanting in size is made up for 

 in symmetry and finish. The Vine is also a great bearer. One 

 of this sort planted in 18G7, had in 1868 six bunches : this 

 year it has thirteen. Too much cannot be said of this Grape ; 

 if the white sort be anything like it, it will be a boon indeed. 



Alicanto is also precocious. A Vine from an eye in 1>>CC 

 carries this year four bunches averaging 11 inches across the 

 shoulders, and 12 inches in depth, splendid in colour and 

 bloom. Trebbiano, also an eye in 1866, has two bunches ; one 

 15 inches long, and 17 inches over the shoulders, the other 

 13 inches deep, and 17 inches over the shoulders. Muscat of 

 Alexandria bears immensely, but the bunches are not equal in 

 size to those of former years. 



Mr. Clarke's opinion of the late Grapes runs thus — Lady 

 Downe's first, it keeps so well; Barbarossa second; Alicante 

 third; Tre'obiano fourth; Muscat of Alexandria finest of all 

 for flavour, but for keeping fifth ; Black Hamburgh sixth. 



There are other sorts, r.a Black Hamburgh, which ever since 

 it fruited has had rusted berries, and it colours badly, which 

 seems unaccountable, as all the others do bo well. To all the 

 vineries air is admitted in front through openings in the front 

 wall, the pipes having a wrought-iron sheathing pierced with 

 holes, there being about an inch cavity between the hot-water 

 pipe and the plate-iron sheathing, and a sort of funnel, also of 

 iron plate, connects the casing round the pipe with the openings 

 in the wall. These are very useful for admitting air in dull 

 and frosty weather, the cold air being heated before it enters 

 the house by its coming in contact with the hot-water pipes. 

 There is also front and top ventilation. 



I have omitted Mrs. Pince ; it is here succeeding well. Some 

 write of it as a weak grower. It certainly is not a gross grower, 

 but I have had an opportunity this season of seeing daily half 

 a dozen cf it, and one in a house along with Muscat of Alex- 

 andria, Alicante, and Black Hamburgh, and along with Foster's 

 Seedling, Troveren Frontiguan, Buckland Sweetwater, and 

 Black Hamburgh, and in both cases it has been the first to 

 reach the top of the house or rafters. 



There is an open space between the last-named vinery and 

 the Peach houses, in which are stored a number of Vines in 

 pots for early forcing — put out, as itis termed, to harden, but in 

 reality to induce rest. The Peach houses have the same 

 aspect as the two vineries last named — viz., facing the south- 

 east, and they are lean-to's, but the vineries have a short back 

 light. The first Peach house is 34 feet long by 12 feet wide. 

 The border is partly inside and partly outside, and in both 

 instances above the ground level. It is i feet deep, and 

 composed of the top spit of the ground about, a not very 

 strong loam, and to this was added about one-sixth of marl. 

 Six rows of l-Lnch pipes serve for heating, the fruit being ripe 

 in May. No manure was mixed with the soil, and no manure 

 water is applied ; and neither for Vines nor Peaches is Mr. 

 Clarke any advocate of much manure in a solid or liquid 

 state, and he attributes none of his success to manure. The 

 trees were planted late in the spring of 186.5. Mr. Clarke, having 

 deferred it so late, had to be content with such trees as he 

 could get. The result has been in 1869 the first prize for 

 Peaches at Liverpool, and the first and second prizes for 

 Nectarines, also the first prize at York for Nectarines. Some of 

 his Peaches weighed 9J ozs. The trees look as if they had 

 been planted a dozen years. One Elmge Nectarine tree covers 

 a space of 21 feet by 14 feet, and has a stem 1 foot 8 inches in 

 circumference at the base, below the bud ; and one branch, 

 originated in 186.^, is 9J inches in girth. The trees and their 

 foliage are in perfect health, no red spider — in fact, nothing de- 

 leterious to health, and though the red spider had appeared, 

 it was speedily brought under, and also the scale, which ever 

 keeps putting in an appearance, by a syringing with Mr. Clarke's 

 compound. 



Mr. Clarke practises what I may call the long-rod system of 

 pruning and training Peach trees ; indeed, he follows no par- 

 ticular mode of training, only it is a sort of fan, his object 

 being to obtain fruit of good size and quality, and to cover the 

 space in a short time. AU the pruning they receive consists in 

 cutting out the old and weak wood, and replacing it with new 

 shoots, which receive no stopping as far as their leaders are 

 concerned, but the laterals have their points pinched out at the 

 first leaves, and they are kept closely pinched in to one joint. 



The shoots thus treated attain an immense length in a single 

 year, some shoots of this year's growth being from 8 to 10 feet 

 long, the whole length clustered with bloom buds. The trees 

 grow so vigorously that they are crossing each other, though 

 there are but seven trees in the house. The back wall is 

 covered with them; but the trees there do not bear fruit, or 

 very little, and the Castle Kennedy Fig on the back wall is 

 equally unproductive. It grows very strongly, and no doubt its 

 roots require to be more confined to induce fertility. 



Next we enter a Peach house, 54 by 12 feet, corresponding 

 with the last, but the growths are even more extraordinary. The 

 trees were planted in 18C0, and one of them has a 27-feet spread 

 of branches, while a shoot of this year's growth is fully 10 feet 

 long ; but there is no unripe wood, and no lack of fruit buds for 

 another year's production. — G. Abley. 



NOTES AND GLEANINGS. 

 There is at present to be seen in bloom at the Boyal Horti- 

 cultural Society's Gardens, Chiswick, that most magnificent o£ 

 all Dahlias, Dahlia impeeialis. The specimens are a little 

 more than 12 feet in height, much branched, each branch ter- 

 minating with a glorious panicle of from ten to twenty exceed- 

 ingly beautiful white flowers, forming at this dull season one 

 of the most splendid objects to be seen. We understand that 

 it is to be exhibited at the next meeting of the Floral Com- 

 mittee on the 16th inst., so that our readers will then have an 

 opportunity of seeing this magnificent plant. 



REMAPJvS ON SOME BEDDING PLANTS. 



Six degrees below freezing point on the night of October the 

 27th, and a fall of snow on the following day, suddenly brought 

 the bedding season of the present year to a close, and as far as 

 my experience goes, the unfavourable spring and the variable 

 summer temperature have severely tested some of the more 

 delicate kinds of bedding plants. Letters which reached me 

 in July last, from some friends in tho eastern and northern 

 counties, informed me of the diiiiculty there was in inducing 

 even the more hardy sorts of bedding plants to grow at all, and 

 many were killed outright ; while the planting of such tender 

 subjects as Colenses, Iresines, and Amaranthuses, was not 

 attempted until the time arrived for a favourable season to 

 have brought them into great beauty. 



As the season has not proved one of the best, it may be both 

 interesting and instructive to those who have not yet made 

 their arrangements for another year, to give the accompanying 

 plan of a flower garden which has come under my notice several 

 times during the summer, with the description of the planting, 

 adding a few notes on the merits or demerits of the materials 

 employed. 



Bed 1 was planted in imitation of a star having eight points, 

 and the angles filled in with Lobelias. The bed is 20 feet in 

 diameter, and the colours were remarkably effective, especially 

 at a distance ; but as the Lobelia is liable to become shabby 

 early in autumn, and at its best is not effective when planted 

 next the grass, I think a more distinct colour would have been 

 better — say the old but beautiful Verbena venosa. I remember 

 once seeing this bed planted thus — centre Centaurea candi- 

 dissima, the star completed with Mrs. Pollock Pelargonium, 

 and the angles filled in with Coleus Verschaffelti — a very lively 

 and pleasing arrangement. 



Beds 2 and 3. — Here the dark velvety brown of the Coleus in 

 contrast with the bright and beautiful foliage of Mrs. PoUock, 

 makes this a very effective arrangement for any flower garden. I 

 have seen a bed this summer where the Tagetes signata pumila 

 took the place of Mrs. Pollock in a similar arrangement, and I 

 thought the orange, yellow, and brown-spotted flowers of the 

 Tagetes improved tlie colour of the Coleus, and gave a better 

 effect to the whole bed. 



In beds i and 5, the bedding qualities of both the Perilla and 

 Koniga are well known, but I may remark that the cerise- 

 coloured flowers of Pelargonium Flower of Spring, peeping out 

 from among the tufts of the Koniga, were thought an improve- 

 ment. 



If the old favourite in beds 6 and 11 possessed a better- 

 shaped truss and more substance in the flower, so as to stand 

 out more boldly, it would be an improvement ; as it is, it is not 

 easily excelled. Some complain that young plants of this Pe- 

 largonium never flower so freely as older ones. I experienced 



