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JOUBNAL OF HORTICDLTUBE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ December 24, 1874. 



rods as required, and good root top-dressings of sonnd 

 food. 



To summarise : Vines which make short-jointed wood, which 

 show fruit mostly at the third leaf, and carry thick dark 

 foliage of medium size like the Fig, may be cut-in close to the 

 old wood. Vines long-jointed, showing only at the fifth and 

 sixth leaf, and carry light flimsy fohage like Rhubarb, will be 

 the better for relays of young wood, gradually removing the 

 old spurs and rods, and, above all things, to guard against the 

 remotest chance of overcrowding. That is the best advice I 

 can give to amateurs — advice founded on close and extended 

 observation and a Ufetime of practice. In cutting, let it be 

 done clean, square, and smooth, without split or splinter, and 

 a little lead paint rubbed in at pruning time will prevent 

 bleeding at bleeding time. 



A word as to peeling the canes. There is a great deal too 

 much of this. It is very nice for a " day's-work " gardener to 

 scrape and peel and pickle a rod a-day. It would often be 

 cheaper to pay him to go to bed. When Vines are clear of 

 filth close-peeling the stems is altogether unnecessary. A 

 tight grasp and rub round by the hand wUl remove all loose 

 bark necessary to come away ; moreover. Vines treated in this 

 way wiU require less and less bark removed every year. Layer 

 win form on and be interwoven with layer, forming a close 

 covering of fibre which is not without a use. Rods peeled to 

 the very wood one year will look to require it the next — that 

 is, bark does not adhere so closely to wood as bark to bark ; 

 and, unfortunately, the peeling and scraping often has gone 

 below the surface of the wood. That can never be done with- 

 out injury ; and, as a matter of fact, I have seen injury almost 

 fatal follow this picking and scraping with a vengeance. If, 

 however, Vines are infested with filth, especially thrips, there 

 must be a careful removal of bark to eradicate the insect pest. 

 Peeling should then be regarded as the lesser of two evils. 

 What does bark do ? It preserves the ascending sap at an 

 equable temperature by its non-couductibility : the sap floats 

 under this Nature's covering safe from the sudden fluctuations 

 of heat to cold and cold to heat without. It also absorbs a 

 measure of moisture, facilitating in no insignificant degree the 

 free breaking of the eyes in spring. Smooth glassy-polished 

 rods are almost invariably irregular in pushing the eyes, and 

 the young growth of such Vines will flag under a bright sun, 

 and curl under a low night temperature more decidedly than 

 when the ascending sap is protected by its natural shield. That 

 is because it must be so. The advice, therefore, to my ama- 

 teur friends (generally desperate scrapers) is to let all the bark 

 possible remain on the Vines, and remove it only to destroy 

 the haunts and germs of insects. 



A word on painting and dressing the rods. Sulphur, soot, 

 hme, and clay, mixed with tobacco and soft-soap water, is the 

 orthodox mixture for Vine painting. It is not asserted the mix- 

 ture has no insect-kUling power, or that if it is not syringed 

 off the Vines, it may not in some degree act as a red-spider 

 repellent. If these little pests regard it as a danger signal, 

 and turn tail at the sight of it, well and good. I have used it 

 on one half a house of Vines which had carried a nice crop of 

 thrips, and the other half thoroughly washed the rods, giving 

 them an out-and-out brushing with soft-soap water, about 1 lb. 

 to the gallon, and half of the gallon tobacco water, applying it 

 almost hot— that is, at a temperature between 130° and 150', 

 and the washing altogether beat the mere painting as a means 

 of insect eradication and prevention. Last year (1873) two 

 vineries had some thrips. The Vines of one were painted, of 

 the other washed. Washing proved the most effectual. Paint- 

 ing will not kill the eggs of thrips, but get a spoke-brush, and 

 set to work with a will, and not many eggs will be left on the 

 Vines to hatch. Scrub the woodwork with the same solution, 

 and force it in abundance into every cranny , holding the syringe 

 by a leather-gloved hand to prevent overheating, and you 

 are on the royal road to success in the insect-destroying cam- 

 paign. Gishurst compound is a fine article for the purpose to 

 those who want something more fashionable than soft soap. 

 To sum up this part of the " dressing," the verdict is. Paint 

 if yon wUl, but wash the rods first. For myself washing 

 suffices. 



Shall I add a word about outside border dressings ? Should 

 the border be covered to keep out wet? If the soil is not 

 retentive of moisture, and the whole bulk is well drained with 

 an open subsoil, such shelter is not necessary. It may be 

 dressed with manure, and the rain be allowed to wash its 

 virtues in ; but if the drainage is imperfect, or the soil guilty 

 of holding water, cover with shutters, or, failing these, dry 



material of any kind in sufficient thickness to absorb as much 

 as possible of the rain during the winter months. — J. Weight. 



FEENCH NOTES. 



Each succeeding visit that I make to Paris, while it impresses 

 me more and more with its marvellous beauty as a city, also 

 confirms me in the opinion that I have often expressed — that 

 too much has been made of its public gardens, and that they 

 will not bear comparison with those of our own much-abused 

 and smoky metropolis. The clearness of the Paris atmosphere, 

 the bright sun which so often, when we are enveloped in fogs, 

 lightens up everything in the city, and more especially, I think, 

 the long line of boulevards with their avenues of trees, impress 

 the stranger ; while the habit that English people have of 

 grumbling at everything in their own country and praising-up 

 everything connected with other nations, tends to make them 

 think that the superiority must rest with their neighbours. 

 But is it so ? Let us look, first of all, at the spaces which our 

 public gardens occupy as compared with those in Paris. Look, 

 for example, at our gardens — St. James's, the Green Park, 

 Hyde Park, and the Regent's Park — why, all the public spaces 

 in Paris might be put into one of them, if we except the Bois 

 de Boulogne and the Bois de Vincennes, which are a long way 

 from the centre of population ; while if we go farther afield we 

 have Battersea Park, Victoria Park, and Finsbury Park, the 

 two former especially of considerable dimensions. The Champs 

 Elysces, on the other hand, is but a narrow strip ; the Tuil- 

 leries gardens are small ; and the other pubUc spaces, such as 

 the garden around the Tour de St. Jacques, the Square Mon- 

 tholon, are very tiny indeed. Then, if we regard that which, 

 in England at least, is considered the sine qua non of park 

 scenery, fine fohage — where in Paris can you equal the grand 

 old Elms of Kensington Gardens, or the foliage of the other 

 parks ? We hear a great deal of the Horse Chestnuts of the 

 Tuilleries, and in early spring they are very beautiful ; but 

 their beauty is soon gone, and in the height of summer, when 

 our parks are grand in their leafy beauty, these are withered 

 and the gardens littered with their falling leaves. In the Pare 

 de Monceaux, which though very small is the prettiest of those 

 in the interior of Paris, there are some fine trees, but nothing 

 in comparison with ours. But then someone will say, " The 

 Bois, as the Parisians delight to call it — surely that is some- 

 thing we have not." But the Bois is some distance out, it is 

 beyond walking distance ; and since the Prussians destroyed 

 part of the wood nearest the city it is even further still. And 

 when you do get there, although prettily laid out, there are no 

 large trees. You have cascades, and lakes, and caf6s, andPres 

 Catalans, &c., but grand umbrageous trees there are not; and 

 in all the French forests that I have seen — St. Germains, Fon- 

 tainebleau, Chantilly, &a., their beauty is much spoiled by the 

 formal manner in which the roads are made. The straight 

 avenues are very distasteful, and one misses the grandeur of 

 our noble English woods. You cannot but smile when they 

 point out to you some grand monarch of the woods and com- 

 pare it with your memories of home trees. Nor can it well be 

 otherwise : wood fuel is so great a necessity of France, that 

 the forests must fall beneath the woodcutter's axe, and hence 

 that which constitutes the pride of our woods is absent from 

 them. However, this is a digression, and I must only repeat 

 that, as far as size and tree-beauty are concerned, we are far 

 beyond the French capital in our parks and pleasure grounds. 



And now as to flowers. If in the former case we have simply 

 relied on the accidents of circumstances, there can be no ques- 

 tion that in the matter of out-of-door planting of tender or 

 half-hardy plants the example has been set us by our French 

 neighbours. It is they who first utilised the Cannas, Cala- 

 diums, Ricinus, Wigandias, &c., which have made so wonderful 

 a change in the outdoor planting of our days. But at the same 

 time I must say we have been ready learners ; and although 

 Barillet and others did much, I think we may say Gibson and 

 others on our side of the water have done more, while the 

 carpet bedding has assuredly (if that be any merit), been our 

 introduction ; and I can with all confidence say that there is 

 nothing now in Paris to be compared with the grand bedding- 

 out of Battersea or the gorgeous displays in our other parks. 

 Indeed, there has seemed to me of late years, save the miser- 

 able war which has for a time so paralysed France, a great 

 falling-oft in the quality of the bedding-out. Cheaper, and at 

 the same time less effective plants have been used, and the 

 general appearance of the pubUc gardens is, therefore, not bo 

 good as nnder the Empire. 



