428 Review of Loudon''s .Gardener^s Magazine. 



which the embryo fruit could l)o detected into another house, where they 

 were more exjjosed to tiie liglit, the temperature of wliich ranged from 

 65^ to 75^^. Here, although they looked well for a short time, the bunches 

 gradually' shriveled up ; so that, to cut the story short, I experienced 

 a com])lete failure." 



Mr. Fish proceeds with son)e general remarks on the "capabilities of 

 plants to accommodate themselves, to a certain extent, to peculiar cir- 

 cumstances;" " But," he says, " why question the utility of the system be- 

 fore you have found it will not succeed, either when tried earl}' or late.'' 

 This question, frequently put, I answer by asking in what the utility 

 consists, were I even to allow that the system did partially succeed, when 

 tried, for instance, in the beginning or middle of March.'' For the 

 final reception of your plants, you must have a frame or pit, &c.; and I 

 should like to know if the most strenuous advocate of coiling is prepared 

 to show that a pit, ike, approjjriated to such a pur])Ose, will insure more 

 profit to the owner than if it had been approi)riateil to its wonted pur- 

 poses ; or it, by filling it at random with coiled pots, he could expect to 

 realize any thing like the same weight t)f grapes which he would expect 

 and obtain from vines planted out, and the tops taken into the pit, frame, 

 &c., in the usual manner.'" 



The injury done to old vines, by cuttinpr away the coilers, 

 Mr. Fish thinks very e^reat ; the tine long ripened slioots be- 

 ing much the best for producing fruit ; and if wood is not 

 wanted, they should not be suffered to grow. Except 

 where the long-rod system is followed, they cannot be cut 

 away to any advantage. 



" Feeling somewhat interested in the suliject, I have written to several 

 individuals, and all who have answered my letters inform me of their 

 failures. All my acquaintances in this neighborhood have also failed. 

 Surely, we do not understand Mr. Mearns's system, or he has not fully 

 explained it to us ; or he has himself been deceived as to its relative 

 merit. For the purpose of farther elucidating the subject, I beg leave to 

 propose the following questions, to which he ought to give a clear and 

 decisive answer: — How many pots had he, when first he published his 

 invention.^ and what weight of grapes did he have from these ])ots.'' and, 

 upon an average, how many pots were destitute of fruit, for one which 

 had fruit.'' Understanding that Mr. Mearns had many hundred pots this 

 season, I also desire the same answers respecting them. These plain 

 facts will give more knowledge of the system, so far as success is 

 concerned, than a dozen of laudatory or condemnatory essays. To re- 

 move every doul)t, it will be necessary also to know if Mr. Mearns is 

 prepared to show that the specimens of his success, to which he refers, 

 were all the produce of rootless shoots ; and that none of them, such as 

 the black Constantia vine, were plants that had been taken up with roots, 

 and then coiled ; or the produce of rootless shoots that are in the second 

 season of their growth. If in the second season, I desire to know in what 

 respect the coiling system is superior to that of Mr. Pillans, \yho obtains 

 fruit in the second season from plants raised from buds ; which system, 

 although it appears to me to be impracticable, Avhere time and labor are 

 scarce commodities, is at any rate free from that objection which I have 

 already designated as the principal argument against the utility of the 

 coiling system. The propriety of the a])ove questions nuist be apparent 

 to every one who, like myselt', knows not whether to admit that Mr. 

 Mearns obtains a greater quantity of fruit by such a process than he 

 would do by the ordinary method ; or that he merely gets as much from 

 a vast number of pots, as is sufficient to prevent the result from being 



