242 Notes and Gleaiiings. 



A LADY CORRESPONDENT informs US that she entirely destroyed the insects 

 which infested her rose-bushes by the use of quassia, and that they thrived bet- 

 ter after its use than before. In the report of the AUton (III.) Horticultural So- 

 ciety, quassia is recommended for destroying black and green, aphis in cher- 

 ries. Quassia may be found at any druggist estabhshment. Use two ounces 

 to a gallon of water ; boil fifteen or twenty minutes. It will also be found effec- 

 tive in destroying many kinds of insects which infest the flower-garden. 



Vine Planting and Training. — The greatest error the novice in grape- 

 growinj commits is to plant his vines too thick. This blunder occurs oftener 

 even thau the mistake, bad enough as it is, of planting too deep. 



It seems almost impossible to the beginner that the little vines he is setting 

 out ten feet apart, with two buds perhaps, and hardly visible in the surrounding 

 soil, can ever grow to such proportions as to interlace and crowd each other. 



That this may happen within three or four years is to him a perfectly incredi- 

 ble notion. 



Yet vines of some kinds possess such inherent vigor of growth, that, even if 

 set twelve feet apart, they will not only crowd each other at the end of the third 

 year, but will be full of fruit ; the clusters of one mixed and mingled with the 

 bunches of the other. Take, for instance, Rogers's 15. 



Ko vine of the twenty or thirty kinds with which I am familiar possesses 

 such vigor and power of making a gigantic annual growth as this. In April, 

 1864, I set out a layer of the Rogers's 15, a little slender bit of a vine, with few 

 roots, a knitting-needle cane, and one living bud ; and to-day the dimensions of 

 the vine it has made are as follows : — 



Diameter of main stock, two inches ; diameter of the two arms, one inch ; 

 diameter of upright canes, about ten feet long, — of this year's growth, three-quar- 

 ters of an inch. A vine on each side of the above-mentioned Rogers's 15 pre- 

 vents its extending laterally ; but I have no doubt, that, if it had not been checked, 

 it would now have strong horizontal arms, each twenty-five feet long, and fur- 

 nished completely with upright canes. I am training a fine vine of the 15 with a 

 single horizontal arm, just to see how long a vine I can get ; and I presume it 

 will be limited only by the bounds of the garden. Now, it seems to me not only 

 a waste of vines and money, but a piece of extreme folly, to set Rogers's 15 vines 

 six, eight, or ten feet apart. If I were setting out a vineyard of this variety in 

 moderately rich soil, I would not have the plants an inch nearer to each other 

 than fifteen feet in the row. At the end of the third year, the vines would touch 

 each other. The Concord is almost as strong a grower ; and I know of no 

 good reason for setting Concord vines with less than twelve feet of space 

 between them. 



I and some of my friends have had vexatious proof of the mistake made in 

 setting Concords too close ; for we have been digging up three-year- old vines 

 this and last spring in order to relieve our trellises. 



The Diana, too, is a prodigious grower, and needs all the room it can get. I 

 have vines, that this season, in a rather poor soil, with no manure and no special 

 attention, have made canes twelve feet long and three-quarters of an inch in 



