698 



FARMERS' REGISTER— COILING SYSTExM FOR VINES. 



galled and gullied land? Cannot the intelligent 

 and skilful projjrictors of Cloverton and Pen Park 

 give to the public a minute and circumstantial ac- 

 count of the management by which the above es- 

 tates were "created anew?" — t()r there are many 

 in this part of the state, which, to all the means 

 now in use among us, are past the healing art. 

 I observed in their respei;live communications to 

 the Albemarle Agricultural Society, they recom- 

 mended deep ploughing, as a most effective agent 

 m the work of improvement. As deep ploughing 

 is a comparative term, I lor one, should be glad to 

 know, what is considered by them, deep plough- 

 ing, in specific inches; or whether the depth of the 

 ploughing is to be dependent on the natural depth 

 of soil? 



A SEEKER OF LIGHT. 



From Loudon's Magazine. 

 COILTKG SYSTEM OF CULTIVATING THE VINE 

 IN POTS. 



By Mr. John Mearns, f. h. s.Gardenerto his Grace 

 the Duke of Portland, Welbeck, Nottinghamshire. 



Sir — As I ^ave communicated an account of 

 my coding system of cultivating the vine in pots 

 to several persons, and have also given a state- 

 ment of my experiments to the London Horticul- 

 tural Society, I leel it to be a duty also to lay my 

 practice beiore you. 



This coiling system is certainly a completel}- 

 new feature, and, I think, a very valuable one, in 

 the art of grape-growing. Is it not a matter of great 

 importance that, in consequence of my discovery, 

 a gardener, who may go to a situation, in the au- 

 tumn, where no grajjes have previously been 

 growing, may be enabled to produce there easily, 

 tor the^ensuiag season, from five hundred to one 

 thousand bunches of fine grapes? All that are 

 wanting to enable any gardener, so circumsta,nced,- 

 to do this, are, the prunings of the vines ti'om any 

 o-arden, that would otherwise be thrown away, 

 and, of course, a convenient frame, pit, or house, 

 for oTowing them in. If" abundance of shoots can 

 be procured, and there is a sufficient extent of 

 frames, &c. either temporary or permanent, two, 

 three, or five thousand bunches may thus be pro- 

 duced in a garden where grapes were never seen 

 before. 



The coiling system is nothing more than taking 

 a long shoot or cutting from a vine, cutting out all 

 the buds except a faw at the upper end, and then 

 beginning at the lower end, and coiling the shoot 

 round and round, say from three to six or eight 

 times, the inside of a pot of twelve or fourteen 

 inches or more in diameter. The shoot may be 

 of any length, from six feet to thiity feet, and it 

 may be entirely of last year's wood; or the greater 

 part of it may be of old wood, provided three or 

 four feet at the upper end be of new wood; be- 

 cause, as every gardener knows, the buds from 

 young wood are more certain' than those fiom old 

 wood of producing blossoms the first year. The 

 vine being coiled round in the pot, and plenty of 

 drainage being put in the bottom, take care that 

 the end of the shoot left out oi" the pot, on which 

 the fruit is to grow, be not injured at the point 

 where it separates from the coil. This shoot luay 

 be two or tliree leet long; and, to keep it Sicady, it 

 maybe tied to a stake, or coiled round two or three 

 6takes. After thi.=:, fill up the pot with a rich 



loamy soil, pressing it firmh' against the coil, as if 

 you were jnaking firm the end of a cutting. 

 Unless this is done in such a manner as to bring 

 every part of the coil in close contact with the soil, 

 it will not root so readily as it otherwise v\'ould do. 

 The next operation is, to WTap up all that part of 

 the stem which is above the pot with moss, and 

 this moss must be kept constantly moist till the 

 grapes are formed. The pot should now be 

 plunged in bottom heat either in a pit or lorcing- 

 liouse; but, wherever it is plunged, care must be 

 taken to regulate the temperature of the atmos- 

 phere of the liouse, in such a manner as to prevent 

 the top of the vine from being excited belbre the 

 roots. If this should happen, the young shoots 

 produced will soon wither for want of nourishment. 

 Abundance of air, therefore, should be given lor 

 several weeks, so as never to allow the tempera- 

 ture of the atmosphere of the house, fi-ame, or pit, 

 to exceed forty-five or fitly degrees, while the tem- 

 perature of the medium in which the pots are 

 plunged may be as high as sixty-five or seventy 

 degrees. When, by examination, you find that 

 fibres have protruded from the coil, the tempera- 

 ture of the atmosphere may then be gradually 

 raised, when the buds will break and the shoots 

 will grow apace. 



The shoots proceeding from that part of the 

 stem above the pot, should be led ufi to within 

 eight or ten inches of the glass, and there trained, 

 at that distance from it, towards the back of the 

 pit or house. It is needless to state to the practical 

 gardener, that each shoot will require to be short- 

 ened, freed 1 i-om laterals, &c. Each vine will pro- 

 duce from three to twenty or more bunches, ac- 

 cording to the length of coil and variety of grape. 

 I have now (Jan. 17, 1834) upwards of two hun- 

 dred coiled branches in pots, and nearly fifty of 

 them in action; some with twenty bunches of fine 

 grapes on them. 



I was asked the other day, whether vines so 

 treated would not require frequent shif tings into 

 larger pots; or, at least, to be shifted once a year. 

 To this I answered, that while we had a plentiful 

 sup]dy of prunings from our own vines, or could 

 procure them from those of our friends, the best 

 mode would be to treat the plants, after they had 

 borne one crop, as we do the roots of asparagus 

 and other plants that we force; that is, to throw 

 them avv'ay. If, however, you should wish to keep 

 the coiled plants a second year, and the pots should 

 be found to be too hdl of roots, turn out the ball, 

 shake the soil from the coil, and cut away all the 

 roots close to the shoot; then re-pot it as before. If 

 this be done in v\^inter, the plant will produce an 

 excellent crop the following season; probably a 

 better one than if the roots were allowed to remain, 

 and the ball shilied into a larger pot or box. The 

 pot or box is in either case, soon filled with young 

 vigorous fibres, like a hatch of young maggots, 

 each eager for food, and consequently sending it 

 up in abundance to sujiply the crop above. Can 

 there be a doubt but tliat this is a far superior 

 mode to keeping pots, or even fruit-tree bordersj 

 filled up with old inert roots? 



Before my bunches are clearly developed, I have 

 thousands of eager mouths or spongioles, extend- 

 ing along the coiled shoot, and each gaping for 

 food; some of these rootlets arc three feet long, 

 and before the vines are out of blossom, man}' of 

 them arc six feet in length, and matted round and 



