GRAPES IN POTS. 



467 



being one pound. The annexed engraving shows a section of the 

 house in question, which was contrived and erected by Mr. G. 

 Messenger, horticultural builder, of Loughborough. The section will 

 almost speak for itself, but we may remark that over the hot- water 

 pipes slate slabs are placed, supported by cross walls of dry bricks, so 

 that the slates may be raised to the height of the inner retaining wall, 

 or they may be lowered to the level of the heating pipes. This is a 



Fig. 346. 



great convenience in working, as the gardener may stand his plants 

 upon the slates, or he may have a bed two feet deep if he re- 

 quires it. 



In the case of the grapes in question the bed had been used the 

 previous season for growing melons, and hence the soil was levelled 

 down, and the vine pots were placed upon it. Of course the roots 

 passed through into the bed, which was very material to the perfecting 

 of the crop. 



Now, in selecting vines for cultivation in pots, it is necessary that 

 the most vigorous and healthy should be chosen, that they be grown 

 on without the slightest check to their progress, and that they should 

 be thoroughly ripened early in the autumn. To this end, therefore, 

 select the most vigorous young vines from your earliest- struck stock, 

 and grow them on with a special view to attaining the utmost vigour. 

 Presuming the vines to be potted from the cutting pot into three-inch 

 pots, they will, when nine inches to one foot high, be shifted into six- 

 inch pots, and when these are full of roots the plants will be removed 

 to thirteen-inch pots, which, as a rule, may be considered as large 

 enough, though some good growers use pots of the eigh teen-inch and 

 twenty-one inch size. There is, however, really little to be gained by 

 this, for we have always found the thirteen-inch pots to finish six or 



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