^g Retrospective Criticism. 



thoroughly decomposed, and one fourth vegetable mould of decayed tree 

 leaves "one sixth of good rotten horse and butchers' grub dung and a itt e 

 sheep-duno- with a moderate quantity of powdered bones and hme rubbish. 

 The bordel-s were frequently watered with liquid manure water from the dram- 

 m«s of a dunghill, and we never had a shriveled grape during the three years 

 I was there ; and these grapes have never failed taking the first prize for the 

 best-flavoured bunch at the Jedburgh Horticultural Society for many years 

 past • and there are vineries in this neighbourhood that have borders not above 

 3 ft deep upon a gravelly bottom, which have not been renewed these fifty years, 

 that have' had abundance of shriveled grapes in them every year lately. 



I think the foregoing remarks prove that it is neither the coldness nor the 

 richness of the border that is the occasion of the shriveling. As to the lo- 

 liac^e of the vines upon the rafters shading those on the back wall, and causing 

 the fruit to shrivel, I think the circumstance may partly be accounted for m 

 this manner. The disease does not operate till the fruit commences colouring, 

 but it must have originated before that, say fourteen days. Vines are mostly, 

 by superior cultivators, slightly syringed and steamed until they commence 

 colourinc^ Might not those on the back wall, from being shaded, be longer 

 cold and^moist. and not get the free circulation of air that they would get 

 upon the rafters ; independent of their other disadvantages of bemg so much 

 farther from the glass, and consequently receivmg less heat from the suns 

 ravs &c ? Now, in my opinion, damp stagnant air is very much, it not 

 altogether, the cause of the shriveling of grapes after they commence then- 

 seco°nd swelling. If there should not be a free circulation of air m tlie 

 house they will shrivel, and if the weather be wet or cloudy they w-iU not do 

 with hi<^h forcing. I am certain, from experience, that W. H. is perfectly cor- 

 rect as "to the air and keeping a dry atmosphere : also see Gardener s Magazine 

 vol. X. p. 137., and vol. xiii. p. 261., by Mr. Robertson. The remarks that fol- 

 low on the same page, by Agronome's nephew, are no proof at all ; for crowd- 

 ing a rafter with superfluous vines was certain to bring disease upon ttie 

 weaker-growing sorts ; and as to his green-house, 1 do not suppose the vmes 

 he planted in it were either Muscats or Frontignans. As to Mr. W. Grey s 

 observations (Vol. for 1837, p. 501.), I can see no reason why grapes should 

 either be overcropped or get infested with the red spider in a vinery, supposing 

 that to be the reason ; and gardeners all know, or ought to know, that grapes 

 set best in a high moist atmosphere. , „ , „. . ^r , yttt 



An article or two have also appeared on theSust on Tines (see Vol. Alll. 

 p 263 and 355.). The latter remarks seem to imply that it is occasioned 

 b'v the foulness of the working gardeners' hands, &c. In the summer of 1 830, 

 my father-in-law had two vineries very much infested with rust on the vines ; 

 it went on increasing every year till 1835, when he concluded that it pro- 

 ceeded from the roots. We accordingly dug out a trench the broad way of 

 the border, leaving 3 ft. of border along the front of the wall, forking the 

 roots as carefully as possible, and folding them up upon the 3 ft. border 

 that was left undisturbed, and shoveling the soil clean out down to the clay. 

 We then covered the bottom with lime rubbish, and beat it down to a sort ot 

 pavement or floor, putting compost on the top of that 18 m. thick. Ihe 

 roots were then carefully pruned and put on the compost and the border 

 filled with the remainder. This compost consisted of good rich loam, ficc, 

 thoroughly decomposed ; and of course the vines were pruned according as 

 their roots had been disturbed. This process had the desired eftect, it 

 entirely cured the vines of rust. What strengthens ray opinion as to the 

 roots IS, that I have a vine here at one end of a large vinery where there 

 is a cistern for holding the rain water that runs oft the house m wet 

 weather and the waste-pipe discharging itself into the border has soured 

 the soil at the roots of this vine, so that it has contracted rust, l^-om what 

 has been said, I think there could be no mistake about my father-in-law s 

 cranes ; he always dressed and thinned tiiem himself. _ 



By giving my opinion on the shriveling and rusting of vines, I do not intend 



