Foreign Notices. 547 



Pruning the Vine. — In your leading article on the subject of the Vineries 

 at Bishop's Stortford, you concluded by saying that the vines were pruned 

 on Mr. Crawshay's system. I presume from that general allusion that the 

 system is well understood by professional gardeners ; but I rather think it 

 is not as universally known as it would seem to deserve, if it can be proved 

 to be certain and successful. In all treatises I have read on pruning the 

 vine, from Speechley downwards, I have never met with any which has 

 detailed this mode of treatment, or recommended its adoption. I have 

 heard it in conversation described as " the walking-stick system," because 

 its principle consists in giving very much that appearance to the main stem, 

 which is always preserved. At each autumnal pruning the whole of the 

 new wood is cut oif to within an eighth of an inch of the old stem. So 

 small, indeed, is the spur left, that the growth of the wood of the follow- 

 ing year nearly levels it with the old wood. At the point of junction of 

 this eighth of an inch with the stem, one or more buds are developed, which 

 in the succeeding year become the shoots upon which the fruit is produced. 

 The old-fashioned grape-grower sees with dismay in this system all the 

 buds of the year which have grown and ripened under the influence of a 

 summer and autumn's sun, annihilated " at one fell swoop," and stares 

 when told that he is to trust entirely for his crop of next year to a bud 

 which he can hardly see. Might I ask your contributors who delight in 

 vine culture whether the success of this plan depends upon the great power 

 working at the roots — the forty barge loads of manure, such as our friend 

 at Bishop's Stortford supplies to the gluttony of his vines — and which con- 

 verts that which, in ordinary circumstances, would at best be but a weak 

 wood-bud, to the production of the finest fruit? Is this mode of pruning 

 likely to be generally successful ? There are, undoubtedly, many advan- 

 tages in it. Amongst others, it does seem more consistent with nature, 

 and with all our ideas of rendering culture subservient to her laws, to re- 

 tain the main stem of the tree which furnishes the largest capacity for the 

 flow of the sap ; it also enables us to keep both fruit and foliage close under 

 the rafters, and thereby to secure the greater quantity of light flowing into 

 our houses. Any useful discussion on the subject will oblige /. /. — {Id. 

 1847, p. 718.) 



Tagetes pinnata. — Allow me to offer my meed of praise to this delightful 

 annual. As a perpetual bloomer, from earliest summer till latest autumn, 

 it is unrivalled as an annual. The rich golden yellow of its beautifully re- 

 flexed petals, the exquisite pinnate foliage and compact growth, are all 

 worthy of our warmest admiration, and claim for it a place in every garden. 

 As a mass flower I know nothing of its class to equal it. — {Id. p. 670.) 



Art. If. Foreign Notices. 



ENGLAND. 

 Dahlias and Dahlia Exhibitions for 1847. — Agreeably to our usual plan 

 of keeping our amateur cultivators informed of every thing relative to the 

 improvement and cultivation of the Dahlia, we have gleaned from our Eng- 



