466 GRAPES IN POTS. 



facts before us, are we to conclude the rough bark is an incumbrance 

 which must be removed ? To the removal of any loose hanging bark 

 there can be no great objection, but to strip vines of their bark, as is 

 the practice with some, is a time-losing barbarism which cannot be 

 too much reprobated. Of course it may be said this excoriation is 

 carried out for sanitary reasons the bark is a harbour for insects 

 and their ova. To such a plea we will say, Remove the cause, give 

 your vines such treatment as insects cannot live under, and then you 

 will have no reason to scarify them annually to remove an enemy 

 which ought not to have been allowed to establish itself upon them. 

 Prevention is better than cure, and that most notably in dealing with 

 insect life in the garden. 



" It is not always practicable to prune the vines in late houses before 

 the sap has commenced to circulate ; therefore we are bound to adopt 

 some means to prevent the loss of sap and injury to the vines that 

 result from excessive bleeding of the sap when they are cut late. For 

 several years past I have paid much attention to this matter, and 

 during that time, by way of experiment, have tried every known 

 remedy to test their respective merits, most of which are either useless 

 or so expensive as to prevent their being used where there are large 

 numbers of vines, or by amateurs with limited incomes. One, how- 

 ever, quite superseded all those hitherto known, so that I have 

 hesitated whether I ought not to turn an honest (?) penny by distri- 

 buting it to the public at so much per bottle ; but I have decided 

 instead to make the matter public in this way, so that all who have 

 late vineries may have a simple and effectual remedy at hand when 

 required. Knowing the drying nature of the * Patent Knotting ' 

 used by painters for dressing knots in wood previous to applying the 

 usual coat of paint, I fancied it would make a good styptic, and tried 

 it accordingly. It was first tried upon some vines the crop from which 

 was not gathered until the sap was in active circulation, and it was 

 found to be very effectual. The wounds caused by cutting the lateral 

 shoots back were painted with it, and the vines scarcely lost a drop of 

 sap. The " Patent Knotting " can be obtained from any oilman, and 

 sufficient for dressing a large house of vines can be had for a few 

 pence. Styptics ought not to be required where very early forcing is 

 not carried on, or where the whole of the grapes are cut before 

 Christmas, because if the vines are pruned, as they should be, before 

 the sap begins to move, there is no danger of ' bleeding,' and there- 

 fore no styptics for its prevention are wanted." Mr. G. Fairbairn, in 

 the ' Gardener's Magazine.' 



Grapes in Pots. This is a very convenient method of producing 

 early grapes, and sometimes later crops are obtained in such quan- 

 tities as to render their production in this manner really profitable. 

 Of this a remarkable example came under our notice in the autumn of 

 last year in the garden of Newstead Abbey, in Nottinghamshire, where 

 a span-roofed house, twenty-five feet long by thirteen feet wide, pro- 

 duced from thirty vines growing in thirteen-inch pots the enormous 

 quantity of three hundred bunches, the average weight of each bunch 



