76 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GABDENEB. 



[ Jannary 27, 1876. 



frnitfnl blossom, were cast to the ground, or if enabled to open 

 tbey were too exhausted to support and sustain the fruit. 



It should be kept in mind when deciding upon the merits 

 of glass coping, that no glass coping or protection of any kind 

 can of itself produce a crop of fruit, and a further tiial is 

 necessary before we can judge of its efficiency. I would 

 therefore advise those who may have failed in obtaining a 

 crop of fruit under glass coping, if it has only been used for 

 one season, not to condemn it at once, but give it another 

 chance before pronouncing the coping a failure. On the other 

 hand, I advise those who, like myself, have obtained a good 

 crop not to be too confident in attributing their success to the 

 glass coping used during tho spring for the first time. 



Coping undoubtedly plays a very great part towards giving 

 us a crop of fruit, but I look to other agents to play an equal 

 part. In this instance we notice that the year 1874 was un- 

 usually favourable for laying the foundation for good crops, 

 and then the spring following was all that need be desired — 

 mild and calm with but little frost, this mildness contiuning 

 from the time when the blossoms were expanding till the 

 " little wee fruits " could be seen peeping through the dwind- 

 ling flowers. Those trees with abundance of nourishment to 

 feed them, and at the same time forcing-out young leaves to 

 shelter them, were found to carry heavy crops ; those, on the 

 other hand, that produced plenty of blossom buds but the 

 trees with health impaired, were unable to support the fruit. 



It is only one more instance brought to our notice how the 

 previous year's treatment has to do with the present year's pro- 

 duction. I attribute my heavy crop of Peaches and Nectarines 

 not to the glass coping and hanging nets, but principally to 

 the good health of the trees, obtained by unremitted water- 

 ing, mulching, syringing, and cleaning them through the 

 summer and autumn of 1874. I fear many who saw my trees 

 with buch crops, and the glass coping over them, concluded 

 the coping must have been the cauee. Perhaps I might have 

 been led away with the same idea had I not other trees quite 

 as heavily cropped without the coping. 



I think it should be generally known that glass coping in 

 itself will not produce a crop of fruit ; there must be a corre- 

 sponding care to produce and keep a never-failing vigour in 

 the tree. Starving the roots and protecting the head will 

 avail nothing, but attention to both wiU do much. Is not a 

 little more care of the wall trees and less to the flower beds 

 occasionally advisable?— J. Ta-jlok, Hardwicke Grange. 



CULTURE OF VINES IN POTS. 



One can scarcely enter a nursery of any note and refrain 

 from surprise at the immense stocks which are annually pro- 

 vided of potted Vines and Eoses. The prince of fruits and 

 the queen of flowers are evidently popular, and there appears 

 to be no fear of disloyalty in the minds of those who devote 

 large houses and acres of ground in preparing a supply of 

 potted Vines and Eoses. It is to the former that I will now 

 refer. 



Potted Vines, as a rule, which are raised in the nurseries 

 are preferable to home-raised canes, simply because in most 

 private gardens suitable houses cannot be devoted to these 

 Vines, and the canes cannot have the exact treatment that 

 they require. In the few gardens affording the necessary 

 means potted Vines are often grown in a most perfect state. 

 I have seen them good at such places as Frogmore, Barghley, 

 Eangemore, &c. But in the best places home-raised canes are 

 seldom solely relied on, but a portion are purobased from the 

 nurseries. 



Bat there are many who cannot purchase, yet who like a 

 few — it may be half-a-dozen or so — of potted Vines, and these 

 must be raised at home, and perhaps not under the most 

 favourable conditions. Now when such Vines are grown they 

 are generally requirtd for early Grapes, and to produce these 

 it is above all things necessary that the canes be grown early 

 in the summer and the wood be ripened early in the autumn. 

 Without these three earlies— early growth, early wood-ripen- 

 ing, and early rest — the fourth early, early fruit, is not 

 attainable. 



It has become popular to grow the canes from eyes and 

 perfect them during the same season, and where houses are 

 provided sufficiently heated and light the plan may be easily 

 carried out, but it cannot be successful in the absence of those 

 conditions. Those who do not start their vineries or Cucumber 

 houses until February (and they are the majority) cannot well 

 perfect Vines from eyes inserted in the current season, yet 



that is the plan which is attempted by many, and after all the 

 attention they give they can only half succeed. People to be 

 successful in any work must adapt themselves to circumstances, 

 and to succeed with Vines under the conditions named they 

 must start now with "cut backs." Small canes raised last 

 year, cut down to the soil in early winter, and started in 

 February, wiU make canes far superior to thoEe which are raised 

 from eyes the same season. They may, perhaps, be in 6 or 

 7-inch pots, and should be partly shaken out and repotted 

 after the eyes have pushed about an inch, using warmed soil. 

 In a proper temperature they will grow rapidly, and by the 

 end of June will be of the length required. 



If growing very freely I never hesitate to pinch the leading 

 shoot, for another leader is formed in a few days, and the 

 stopping " plumps " the lower buds. The best pot Vmes I 

 ever produced were stopped at 3 feet, 6 feet, and 9 feet. The 

 Vines in their growing season must have light, and must 

 therefore be trained as near to the glass as postible. A 

 Cucumber pit or house is a very suitable place for raising the 

 canes. They must be syringed freely, nsing occasionally per- 

 fectly clear soot water, which will invigorate them and ensure 

 them against the attacks of insects. 



After the growth is made the Vines must not be hurriedly 

 placed in the open air to " ripen their wood," for let it be 

 remembered that it is heat and not cold that is the prime 

 maturing agent. 



The soil beet suited to Vines in pots is pure loam with a slight 

 admixture of bone dust, say a pound of " dust" to a peck of 

 soil, using also in the compost lumps of charcoal freely. That 

 is all the stimulant needed in the preparing year, but in the 

 fruiting season rich top-dressings must be applied, with sup- 

 plies of liquid manure after the stoning period. — A Fobeman. 



OLD TREES. 



When I was at school I received a castigation, and sub- 

 sequently a shilling to make me remember the "dressing." 

 I have not forgotten it, the shilling having been an effectual 

 memory-preserver. Mr. Eobson rewards first, and then casti- 

 gates — rewards by praising the completeness of my remarks 

 on page 31, and then in an article of considerable value 

 (page 61), demonstrates their incompleteness. But his re- 

 proof is kindly meant and kindly administered, and I will not 

 only endeavour to remember it, but I thank him for it, hia 

 great experience and unusual means of observation on this 

 matter being such as to command respect. 



Perhaps my tutor imagines I am about to follow his example, 

 and that after "lathering" 1 shall commence "shaving." 

 Well, perhaps I shall, but nevertheless I thank him in all 

 sincerity for his contribution, and will promise that I shall 

 not differ from him " violently." 



In one point I agree with Mr. Eobson, and in another place 

 he agrees with me ; so far, therefore, we are good friends. He 

 says that an old Apple tree should not be touched with a knife 

 or saw during the last ten years of its life. I cordially agree. 

 I said that thickness in the interior of old orchard trees was 

 generally caused by thinning. Mr. Eobson confirms that very 

 clearly. But I said further, that thickly-crowded trees can be 

 made thin by pruning and subsequently disbudding, and ex- 

 perience has taught me that it can be done beneficially, limit- 

 ing the practice to trees in a thickly-planted orchard ; trees 

 that are singly and exposed being especially excepted. 



Twenty years ago I took charge of an orchard of mixed 

 fruits, the trees being one dense thicket, so much so that the 

 fruit, which was small, could only be gathered with great diffi- 

 culty. Mr. Eobson would have removed tome of the trees 

 entirely and have left the remainder untouched. They were 

 full-sized but not old trees. I removed some, and the others 

 I pruned, not shortening their branches but removing many, 

 subsequently rubbing-off the after-growths, or the trees would 

 soon have been thicker than before. The improvement was 

 permanent, and only last year I received the congratulations 

 of the owner of the orchard which I "mutilated" in 1854. 

 Of course the trees were not then in their last decide, or I 

 would not have pruned them ; neither has the treatment they 

 received apparently shortened their days, but it has improved 

 their fruit. 



Apparently the oldest and most decrepid tree was a Eibston 

 Pippin. It was an " old favourite," and was treated like the 

 rest as to pruning. The crooked, curled, knotty branches 

 were taken out, leaving only the smoothest, straigbtest stems, 

 and these were not shortened. The lichens were killed. A 



