538 
the height of the border quite to the 
level of the holes where the plants 
were. to be carried into the house, so 
that no part of their stem should be 
exposed to the external air, I opened 
the holes, for the reception of the 
plants, leaving them open upwards of 
a week, to remove any noxious qua- 
lity in that part of the compost which 
would first receive the roots. 
My planting was executed on the 
13th of May; but I consider that any 
period between the 10th of May and 
10th of June will be equally success- 
ful, provided the work be done in sea- 
sonable weather, that is, when it is 
neither wet nor cold. 
At the time of planting I turned 
into each hole a common wheel-bar- 
row full of very old tan from the pine- 
house, in the middle of which tan tle 
roots of my vine plants remained after 
the plants had been treated as I shall 
now describe. I first cut off the leaves 
from the lower part of the plant, about 
two feet and a half of its length, leav- 
ing about an inch of the footstalk of 
each on the plant, the end of which 
was then drawn very carefully through 
the hole, under the plate, without in- 
juring the tender part of the shoot; 
the pot being removed, the ball or root 
of the plant was placed two feet dis- 
tant from the front of the house, upon 
its side, so that the stem lay in a hori- 
zontal position, about six inches below 
the level of the surface of the border. 
When thus placed, the whole of the 
stem which was to be covered was 
slit or tongued, at each eye, like a 
carnation layer, by passing a sharp 
knife at three-quarters of an inch be- 
low each eye, and on the sidé of the 
eye, about one-third of the thickness 
into the wood, and then upwards to 
the centre of the joint. This being 
done, the stem was covered with about 
four inches of old tan, and the other 
two inches were ‘filled up with the 
mould of the border. It is essential 
to the safety of the plant that the slit- 
ting be done the last thing, and whilst 
it is laid in its position, lest the stem 
should be broken. 
’ The effect of the operation of slitting 
the stem is the production of abun- 
dance of roots from every eye; the 
progress ‘is not very great until the 
roots begin to push out: after these 
shoot, it is surprising how fast the 
vines grow. 
I gave alittle fire in the house for the 
first month after planting, though 
sparingly, and air was admitted into it 
Proceedings of Public Societies. 
[July 1, 
continually, until the plants had got 
sufficient hold of the border; air was 
then admitted in the day, but the house 
was shut up at night. Under this 
treatment, the shoots of the present 
season of these young plants are from 
twenty-five to thirty feet long, and 
their strength is fally proportionate to 
their length. 
It is not my intention to grow any 
thing on the border, which will ex- 
haust it, or deprive the vines of their 
full nourishment. To protect their 
roots in the winter, I shall use a cover- 
ing of old tan, about six inches thick, 
which I prefer to dung or mulch of any 
description. 
NATIONAL VACCINE ESTABLISHMENT. 
Vaccination has now been sub- 
mitted to the test of another year’s 
experience, and the result is an in- 
crease of our confidence in the benefits 
of it. Of small-pox, in the modified 
and peculiar form which it assumes 
when it attacks a patient who has 
been previously vaccinated, many 
cases indeed have been reported to us 
in the course of last year, and some 
have fallen within the sphere of our 
own observation ; but the disorder has 
always run a safe course, being uni- 
formly exempt from the secondary 
fever, in which the patient dies most 
commonly when he dies of small-pox. 
To account for occasional failures, of 
which we readily admit the existence, 
something is to be attributed to those 
anomalies which prevail throughout 
nature, and which the physician ob- 
serves, not in some peculiar constitu- 
tions only, but in the same constitution 
at different periods of life, rendering 
the human frame at one time suscepti- 
ble of disorder from a mere change of 
the wind, and capable, at another, of 
resisting the most malignant and sub- 
tile contagion. 
The number of persons who have 
died of small-pox this year within the 
bills of mortality is only 508 ; not more 
than two-thirds of the number who 
fell a sacrifice to that disease the year 
before: and as in our last report we 
‘had the satisfaction of stating that 
more persons had been vaccinated 
during the preceding than in any for- 
mer twelve months, we flatter our- 
selves that this diminution of the num- 
ber of deaths from small-pox may 
fairly be attributed to the wider diffu- 
sion of vaccination. 
(Signed) Henry Harorp, president. 
VARIETIES, 
