92 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER, 



OCTOBER 1, IHRi. 



From l.oiulniis Gardencr^s liliiouzifie. 

 ON THE COIMNG SYSTEM OP CULTIVATING 

 THE VINE IN POTS. 



BY JOHN MEARNS, F. H. S. 



As I have cojiiiiniiiiuated an account of my 

 Coiling system of cnltivatinj; tiie vine in |)()ts to 

 several persons, anil have also given a statement 

 of my ex|iei-inients to the London Ilnrticniimal 

 Society, 1 feel it to he a duty also lo lay my [jrac- 

 tice before you. 



This coiling system is certainly a completely 

 new feature, and, I think, a veiy vahijhie one, in 

 the art of grape-growing. Is it not n matter of 

 great importance that, in consequence of my dis- 

 covery, a gardener, who may go to a situation, in 

 the autumn, where no grapes have previously 

 heen growing, may he enabled to produce there 

 easily, for the ensuing season, from 500 to 1000 

 bunches of fine grapes ? Ail tliat are warning to 

 enal)lc any gardener, so circumstanced, to <lo ihis, 

 are the prunings of the vines from any garden, 

 that would otherwise he thrown away, and, oi' 

 course, a convenient frame, pit, or house, for 

 growing them in. If abundance of shoots can he 

 procured, and there is a sufficient extent of frames, 

 &c. either temporary or permanent, two, three, or 

 five thousanil bunches may thus be produced in ii 

 a garden where grapes were never seen before. 



The coiling system is nothing more than taking 

 a long shoot or cutting from the vine, cutting out 

 all the buds except a few at the upper end, and 

 then beginning at the lower end, and coiling the 

 shoot round and I'oimd, say from three to six or 

 eight times, the inside of a pot of 12 or 14 iii. or 

 mure in dianjetcr. The slioot iriay be of any 

 length, from 6 ft. to 30 ft., and it may he entirely 

 of last year's wood : or the greater part of it may 

 he of old wood, provided 3 or 4 ft. at the upper 

 end be of new wood ; because, as every gardener 

 kuows, the buds from young wood are more cer- 

 tain than those from old wood of producing blos- 

 soms the first year. The vine being coiled round 

 in the pot, anil plenty of drainage being put in the 

 bottom, take care that the end of the shoot left 

 out of the pot, on which the fruit is to grow, be 

 not injured at the point where it separates from 

 tlie coil. This shoot may he '2 or 3 ft. long; and, 

 to k.'>;!p it steady, it may be tied to a stake, or 

 coiled roimd two or three stakes. Afler this, fill 

 up the pot with a rich loamy soil, pressing it 

 against the coil, as if you were making firm the 

 end of a cutting. Unless this is done in such 

 manner as to bring every part of the coil in close 

 contact with the soil, it will not root so read- 

 ily as it otherwise would do. The next oper- 

 ation is, to wra]) up all that part of the stem which 

 is above the pot with moss, and this njoss must be 

 kept constantly moist till the grapes are lijrmcd. 

 The pot shoidd now he plunged in botloju heal, 

 either in a pit or forcing-house ; hut, wherever it 

 is plunged, care must be taken to regulate the 

 temperature of the atU)osphere of the house, in 

 such a manner as to prevent the top of the vine 

 from being excited before the roots. If this should 

 happen, the young shoots produced will soon 

 wither for want of nourishment. Ahundaiu'e of 

 air, therefore, should bo given for several weeks, 

 so ai never to allow the temperature of the atmos- 

 phere of the hmise, frame, or pit, to exceed 43 

 deg. or 50 (leg. while the temperature of the m(5- 

 dluui in which the pots are plunged may be as 

 high as G5 deg. or 70 deg. When, by exandna- 

 tion, you tind»that fibres are protruded from the 



coij, the temperature of the atmosphere may tliet 

 be gradiuilly raised, when the buds will break, and 

 the shoots will grow apace. 



The shoots proceeding from that (lart of the 

 stem above the pot should be led up to within 8 

 or 10 in. of the glass, and there trained, at that 

 distance from it, towards the back of the pit or 

 liDUSP. It is needless to state to the practical gar- 

 dener, thi.t each shoot will require to be shortened, 

 freed frotn laterals, &c. Each vine will produce 

 from three to twenty or more bunches, aecordin 

 to the length of coil and variety of gra|)e. I have 

 now (Jan. 17,1834) upwards of 200 coiled branch 

 es in pols, and nearly fifty of them in action ; 

 some with twenty hunches of fine grajies on them 



I was asked the other day, whether vines so 

 treated would not require frequent shirtings into 

 larger pots ; or, at least, to be shifted once a year. 

 To this I answered, that while we had a plentifid 

 supplyof i)runiugs from our own vines, or could 

 procure them from those of our friends, the best 

 mode would be to treat the plants, after they had 

 borne one crop, as we do the roots of as|)aragus 

 and other plants that we force ; that is, to tliiow 

 them away. If, however, you should wish to 

 keep the coiled plants A second year, and the pots 

 should he found to he too full of roots, turn out 

 ihe ball, shake the soil from the coil, and cut 

 away all the roots close to the shoot ; then re-pot 

 it as before. If this he done in winter, the plant 

 will produce an excellent crop the following sea- 

 sun ; probably a better one than if the roots vvere 

 allowed to remain, an<l the hall shifted into a larger 

 pot or box. The pot or box is in either case soon 

 filled with young vigorous fibres, like a hatch of 

 young maggots, each eager for food, and conse- 

 quently sending it up in abundance to supply the 

 crop above. Can there be n doubt hut that this is 

 a far sni)erior mode to keeping pots, or even fruit- 

 tree borders, filled up with old inert roots? 



Before my bunches are clearly developed, I 

 have thousands of eager mouths or spongioles, ex- 



tendi 



along the coiled shoot, and each 



gapmc 



fiir food ; some of these rootlets are 3 ft. long, 

 and, before the vines are put out of blossom, 

 many of them are 6 ft. in length, and matted 

 round ami round the pot. You will easily under- 

 stand, from this, how important it is to supply 

 vines so treated with liquid manure, either by wa- 

 tering from above, or by a supply from a saucer 

 or feeder from below. 



I am. Sir, yours, &c. John Mearns. 



rVelbeck Gardens, Jan. 17, 1834. 



Since we received the above account from Mr. 

 Mearns, we have heard the article on the same 

 subject to which he alludes, read before a meet- 

 ing of the Horticultural Society. In this paper 

 the names of a nund)er of varieties are mentioned, 

 which had been thus fruited ; iiu-luditig the mus- 

 cadines, black clusters, black liamburgh, black 

 Damascus, black Tripoli^ muscat of Alexandria, 

 ^V.c. Mr. Mearns also mentions that, hearing of a 

 new and fine variety of muscat called the Caudia, 

 which had been a few years ago introduced into 

 the Duke of IJucclcugh's gardens, at Dalkeith, he 

 wrote last uutunm to Mr. Macdonald the gardener 

 there, for some of the prunings of this vine, and 

 that he had, at the time the paper was written 

 (Feb. 1834) plants of the Candia at Welbeck, from 

 coils of the prunings received, with immerous 

 hunches of fruit on them, which would ripen in 

 yVpril and May next. 



We regard this discovery of Mr. Mearns as one 

 of considerable importance, not only as showing 

 what may be done in the jiarticuiar case of the 

 vine, hut as tending to familiaiize practical gar- 

 deners wiih some points in vegetable physiology. 

 It is clear that the coiled shoot is a reservoir of 

 nutriment to the young growth; in the same man- 

 ner as the tuber of a potato is an aci-nmulation of 

 nutriment for Ihe young shoots which proceed 

 from its bud or eyes when planted. To a certain 

 extent, long shoots of any tree whatever, if buried 

 in the soil, either coiled or extended, and two or 

 three inches, or feet of their upper extreniities 

 ke|it out of the ground, would produce leaves, 

 blossoms and even fruit the first year; but those 

 shoots, which, from iheir nature <lo not freely 

 emit fibres, or do not emit them at all, would per- 

 haps not set iheir fmit ; or might even ceat-e to 

 produce leaves in the course of a few months. 

 The reason in that case would be, that the reser- 

 voir of nourishment soon becomes exhausted, if 

 it is not su|>plied from the soil, and that the only 

 mode by which the shoot can obtain nourishment 

 from the soil is, by means of fibres, which it has 

 either no power of producing at all, or cannot 

 produce in suflicient abimdance. The advantages 

 of the coiling system iire, that an almost unlimi- 

 ted nmnber of fibres or mouths tire produced by it 

 in a very lindted portion of soil, and that this soil 

 can be rendered of the most suitable description 

 forthegi\en plant, supplied abundantly with li- 

 quid manure, and renewed almost at ])leasure. 

 The use of cutting ofi' all these fibres or mouths 

 when they get too long, is merely to keep them 

 within a limited space, ibr when a fibre elongates, 

 unless it has at the same time, room to bianch 

 out so as to produce other fibres, it can take in no 

 more nourishment than when it is short, say an 

 inch long ; because the nonrishment is only taken 

 in by the spbngiole, or point of the fibre. The 

 whole art of rapid cultivation, both in ligneous 

 and herbaceous vegetables, proceeds on this prin- 

 ciple. The Lancashire gooseberry grower litis re- 

 course to it, wlien he shortens the root of his 

 plants at a certain distance from the stem every 

 two or three years ; thus causing them to emit 

 fibres, for which he prepares a circuhir trench of 

 rich soil round each tree. Mr. Mearns' mode of 

 treating the peaidi and other ii'uit trees, described 

 in the succeeding ))aper, and the mode of cultiva- 

 ting ctihliages and other ]ilants of tlitit kind, by 

 pricking out from the seed bed, and transplanting, 

 and re-transplunting into rich soil, instead of sow- 

 ing where the pliuils are finally to remain, all pro- 

 ceed on the |>riuciple of multiplying the mouths, 

 and incretising the supply of rich food within a 

 limited space. The result of this is, both in lig- 

 neous and herbaceous jdants, that maturity is ob- 

 tained with less magnitude than in a natural state, 

 and in a much shorter time. The essential prin- 

 ciple is the abundant supply of rich nutriment, and 

 the same princijile produces exactly the same re- 

 sults in the animal kingdom. Hence the small- 

 sized early-fatting varieties of cattle, sheep, swine, 

 &c. 



Whyre a idtmt or tinimal is grown or reared 

 chiclly to be consumed as ibod, the a|iplication of 

 this principle seems desirable and advantageous; 

 but where the natural diaracter and beauty of the 

 plant or animal are desiderata, a more natural 

 mode of treatment, or one more resembling that 

 which is generally followed, is requisite for attain- 

 ing the end in view. 



