342 General Notices. 



plants may be removed to any dry house or room, where the grapes will 

 keep until wanted. 



The varieties I have found best for early forcing' are, the Hambuj-gh, 

 Dutch Sweetwater, and Muscadine. The small-berried varieties, as the 

 Esperione and others, are hardly worth growing, compared with the above. 

 Muscats, and all the delicate sorts, as the Frontignan, answer admirably 

 later in the season, and tluis tlie amateur, and those who possess but a 

 small extent of glass, may cultivate all the varieties of grapes procurable 

 in British nurseries, at but a trifling additional expense. 



Although I have given directions how to render vines fruitful in one 

 season, yet, when a stock is once acquired, they may be kept for years in 

 a fruitful state by resting them at alternate seasons. Thus those plants 

 which have fruited in spring may be turned out of their pots into a bor- 

 der, where they will require no farther trouble until the following spring, 

 when they may be taken up, their roots reduced in some degree, and 

 placed in pots again, planting them deeper than they previously were ; 

 they may then have the same management as young plants, and will make 

 very strong canes in the course of the summer. I have vines in pots now 

 in fruit tbat have borne three or four previous crops. Where the cultiva- 

 tor prefers boxes to pots, they may be used, from 14 to 16 inches square, 

 wliich will be quite large enough; they can be packed on shelves more 

 closely together than pots, and are more handy to move about. 



By "the above process, grapes may be procured by tlie end of March 

 and April, without interfering with those planted outside, and I would 

 particularly recommend its adoption by amateurs possessing small estab- 

 lishments, as afibrding them a means of prolonging their grape season ; 

 besides being productive of gratification and pleasure. ( Gardeners' Chr'on- 

 ic^e, 1844, j9. 195, 212, 238.) 



WlulnfAi's Composition. — To the many notices of the successful appli- 

 cation to the purposes of horticulture of Mr. G. Whitney's (of Shrews- 

 bury) Transparent Composition, which have appeared in your colums, 

 peruiit me to contribute the following, which, I doubt not, will be perused 

 by your numerous subscribers and readers with similar gratification which 

 resulted to myself from its examination. During the last few weeks, Mr. 

 Whitney has erected in his garden a house 28 feet long by 12 feet wide 

 and 15 feet high, covered entirely with muslin prepared with his Trans- 

 parent Composition. Internally the house is divided into a stove-pit, 

 heated by a hot-water apparatus; and a greenhouse or conservatory. In 

 the stove, a vine (Black Hamburgh) has been introduced for experiment, 

 which bids fair, in a very few days, to be clothed with healthy and luxu- 

 riant foliage. Cucumber plants inserted there are thriving well, and 

 never flagged or drooped in the least on their removal, although not 

 shaded. In the greenhouse compartment, pseonies, fuchsias and otlier 

 plants are healthily putting forth strong and vigorous shoots. Indeed, the 

 whole promises speedily to be a scene of great beauty and luxuriant veg- 

 etation. Nor can it fail to be so, the light being so clear, abundant, and 

 yet subdued, being very similar to that reflected from a white cloud, quite 

 unaccompanied with any glare, and admirably and equally diflrised 

 throughout every portion of tlie house by the singularly radiant and re- 

 peated reflections from the white coverings, walls, and surfaces. The 

 temperature in the stove, which is usually kept at 80°, is well and uni- 

 formly preserved, the air-tight nature of the whole apparatus not suflfering 



