216 GARDEN PLANTS. PART II. 



When the plant is of a choice kind, or one that it is desired 

 to make the most of, it may, as is usually done in England, be 

 multiplied by single eyes. For this purpose, wood of the current 

 year's growth is cut into pieces of about two inches in length, 

 each with one bud in the centre, and split in half. The half 

 bearing the eye is laid firmly in a horizontal position, with the 

 eye uppermost, upon a light mellow soil, and covered with fine 

 sand, so that all but the eye is buried. Dr. G. Henderson informs 

 me that they have adopted this mode of propagating the vine 

 with great success in the Punjab, but I believe it is not the 

 practice there to split off half the wood. 



In the vicinity of Calcutta, and indeed elsewhere in India, the 

 Grape-vine seems capable of being made to bear fruit at very 

 variable seasons. Mr. Thompson, for instance, gives an account 

 of an old Grape-vine which, according to the time of pruning 

 and dressing, produced ripe fruit in February, May, July, and 

 September, respectively.* And Dr. Spry thinks it a circumstance 

 worth recording that " a pensioner at Meerut presented Mr. H. 

 Cope, on Christmas-day of 1841, with a ripe bunch of grapes of 

 good size and very tolerable flavour."! On the 14th February, 

 1844, W. Storm, Esq., "presented to the Agri-Horticultural 

 Society a very perfect bunch of Grapes, the produce of a vine 

 growing in his compound at Calcutta. The vine was pruned in 

 September, and the grapes are all now ripe." 



No person, however, whose object is to obtain from his vines 

 the richest flavoured fruit they can produce will endeavour to 

 ripen them at an untimely season. The driest and hottest period 

 of the year is when Grapes ripen finest. This will be March in 

 the Deccan, May in the vicinity of Calcutta, and June in the 

 Upper Provinces. 



Sir E. Tennent gives this very interesting piece of information 

 respecting the culture of the vine in Ceylon, which may perhaps 

 lead to important practical results in the cultivation not only of 

 the vine, but of several other fruit-trees in this country. 



"Mr. Dyke has succeeded in cultivating the Black Grape of 

 Madeira trained over a trellis the want of winter-rest for the 

 plant being supplied by baring the roots and exposing them to 

 the sun. The vines give two crops in the year, the principal one 



* ' Agri-Horticultural Journal/ vol. viii. p. 181, and vol. ix. p. 6. 

 t Dr. Spry's ' Plants for India,' p. 82. 



