36—1846.] 
THE GARDENERS’ CHRONICLE. 
595 
BECK’S SEEDLING PELARGONIUMS OF 1845. 
E BECK has received so many remittances for the 
* above, and the Plants are in such fine condition, that 
^e is glad to acknowledge his obligations to purchasers b; 
‘sending them out by the 10th of this month instead of October, 
and he will feel obliged by the receipt of particular instructions 
for their transmission, if any are required. 
B 14 more plants of “ Bacchus,” 3 of 
“Patrician,” and 6 of “Sirius,” to dispose of at Catalogue 
Du 
NEW PLANTS. 
MESSRS. VEITCH & SON can now supply strong 
and well-established PLANTS of the following, viz. :— 
Æschynanthus Lobbianus .. os «£2 2 
s pulcher "m m 2 
3 radicans .. 
Balsamina latifolia .. .. 
Cyrtoceras multiflora . 
Cuphea cordata E m 
Epacris ardentissima. m 53 
» magnifica .. 
Gardenia Stanleyana 
hitfieldii 
coomo 
E 
ocoooooocsco 
* Leschenaultia splendens .. —.. 1. 110 6 à 
* This plantis of a dwarf, compacthabit of growth, with bright 
ingi of Lesci i 
inform 
biloba, The usual allowance to the Trade. 
Select Catalogues of Plants and Seeds can be had on pre-paid 
"application, —Exeter, Sept. 5. 
GLADIOLUS GANDAVENSIS. 
OUIS VAN HOUTTE'S Nursery, GHENT, BELGIUM. 
i Very strong Bulbs, 
Per dozen - £015 0 
110 0 
100 410 0 
The Gardeners’ Chronicle. 
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER. 5, 1846, 
MEETINGS FOR THE TWO FOLLOWING WEEKS. 
Mowpav, Sept. 7—Entomological —. . a . 8r. 
Wepxsspay, — 16—RoyalSouth London |  . 
co 
p Wapwnsmay,  Sept.9— 
1 pant, 
UNTRY Sj 8 
Graven Horticultural, 
Thanet Floricultural and Horticultural. 
‘Taunspay, 7 10) South Essex orticultural. 
Wronrspay, — 16—Norfolk and Norwich Horticultural. 
Fury, — 18—Perthshire Horticultural, 
Ovr attention has been caught by a little six- 
penny pamphlet * on Vivz-Growrne, which, in the 
:»ibsenee of a little assistance, may be longer in 
making the acquaintance of the public than it 
deserves. We are the more apprehensive that 
this will be the case because its quaint, we had 
almost written queer, style, is by no means calcu- 
lated to attract the careless reader. The herein- 
efores and hereinafters, hereofs and thereofs, sin- 
Sulars enforced by plurals, expletives, and afore- 
Saids, make it look more like a law-conveyance 
than a treatise on Vine pruning. 
The notion of the author is that London may be 
turned into a metropolitan vineyard, and he tells 
us that when he was young (he is evidently so no 
longer) he would have “ engaged to astonish many 
of the inhabitants of Chelsea, and others passing 
through it, by an abundant Vintage: provided the 
distinguished post— not a * Commissionership of 
the Woods and Forests, but—the post of Pruner- 
General of all the unproductive Vines in Chelsea 
‘ould be obtained for him, with no more salary than 
What would suffice adequately to pay a few tole- 
Tably active Chelsea Pensioners (some perhaps of 
t Ose heroic onesso properly resting after having often 
fought, and bled with a profi even ding 
‘hat of untimely-pruned Vines, among the Vine- 
Yards of Spain and Portugal, &c.); or some few 
Other underpruners.” 
le is, moreover, extremely sensitive about 
foreigners, from Vine-growing countries, and is 
Shocked at their quizzing the cockneys for their 
System of pruning a Vine like aprivet-hedge, and we 
believe his argument goes to the extent of main- 
taining that everybodies’ slate roof may as well be 
Made into a rival of the vineyards of Burgundy, as 
left to be an ugly ridge: Then, indeed, will the 
golden age return, when every man shall live under 
the shadow of his own Vine. 
€ cannot, however, say that in this matter we 
are exactly of our author's opinion. Not that we 
differ from him in the possibility of obtaining Grapes 
H London, or upon the miserable example of 
a Ty cok ignorance which cockney Vines gene- 
a J exhibit. There he is perfectly right. But he 
c tell us how we Londoners are to 
Set rid of the.soot. For ourselves, we confess that 
a mixture of charcoal and hartshorn does not 
Submit that he should have explained 
€ went into the mystery of Vine-pruning. 
n short the thing is a chimera, and but another 
example of a man’s zeal outrunning his discretion 
But although we stop thus. short in our accord- 
pus with our author's opinions, we do not forget 
OW applicable his observations are to other places 
" ations onthe Mismanagement ;:3—7 
_ that before 
besides London—to suburban gardens, to country |! 
towns, and, above all, to cottagers. And we must 
do. him the justice to say that his sixpenny pamphlet 
is better adapted to the understanding of unedu- 
cated people than any ofthe pretending “ Treatises” 
that we know of. It is, therefore, for their sake 
that we bring it into notice, because it really tells 
S 
how to make his Vine bear fruit, And, dare we 
add it? because there are many persons, called 
gardeners, who would find it to their advantage to 
commit its precepts to memory and to apply them 
to practice. 
The writer is thoroughly acquainted with the 
nature of the Vine, he explains very carefully and 
distinctly the points which an ignorant man requires 
to know, and to his knowledge and perspicuity he 
adds some sound good sense. As an example of 
his best manner we select the following paragraph 
on Vine bleeding : 
“The Vine is very apt to bleed greatly in spring if 
the winter pruning be deferred to but a very short 
time after the commencement of the year, if no se- 
verity of frost follows to deaden the pores where 
cut through, It remains at present a somewhat 
disputed question whether such bleeding be inja- 
rious to the Vine, but the writer thinks it ought to 
be avoided if possible ; and he does nothold it to 
be absolutely necessary to accomplish the necessary 
pruning before the spring shoots appear : for he has 
in many cases chosen, in order to avoid causing the 
bleeding, to leave a Vine quite unpruned till the 
buds began to push themselves into shoots; and, 
as the Vine has shown its disposition to extend 
itself by each upper shoot, he has pinched off that 
shoot below its first joint, taking care not to wound 
then, in the slightest degree, the wood of the past 
year, which would occasion bleeding. This he has 
done till he has brought the Vine exactly into that 
state as to bearing buds which he would have done 
if he had accomplished the pruning at or before 
Christmas ; and has got by this dilatory process oft- 
times a very good crop. The only disadvantage 
seems to be that many rather unsightly ends of the 
last year's shoots bared of their buds must be left 
till about the 3d week of June when they may, as 
well as even far older wood, be cut away without 
occasioning any or but the slightest bleeding. The 
bleeding in April and May in a vigorous Vine is 
such that it seems to defy the utmost art of surgery 
to stanch it. Some say that it may be stanched 
by burning the end of the shoot and then applying 
thereon hot sealing-wax, but even this the writer 
has tried without success : and certainly the burning 
alone is not sufficient, as where the burning ends 
there the bleeding takes place. The bleeding seems 
to be conducted according to the order following, 
In about the.end of March the Vine will bleed 
throughout a few of the middle hours of the day 
when the sun shines powerfully, and the wind is in 
a warm quarter ; but during the night the bleeding 
ceases. About the middle of April to the middle 
of May the bleeding takes place considerably and 
incessantly both by day and night. In the end of 
ay and beginning of' June the bleeding stops by 
day, and takes place in the night. "Towards theend 
of June, when the shoots and bunches are contend- 
ing against each other most strenuously by day and 
night for each drop of sap, there seems to be no 
longer room for any waste of sap by bleeding. Such 
is what the writer believes to be the order of the 
Vine’s bleeding.” 
Although we can offer no support to the views of 
those who think London a suitable place for a fruit- 
garden, yet we are clearly of opinion that the low 
price of glass will lead to a much more general 
cultivation of the Vine, especially if accompanied, 
as we believe it will be, by a more economical 
application of the glass itself. And we, therefore, 
regard the writer of the pamphlet now brought into 
notice as one who will have done good service to all 
except those who have professed gardeners—and 
to some of them. Above all, because it is one step 
towards the purification of the present race of 
“jobbing gardeners” who, as a body, have done 
more to diseust persons of small means with their 
gardens than all other causes taken together. 
Se 
_| the little village shopkeeper, mechanic, or peasant, 
ALTHOUGH we are as far as ever from any cer- 
tainty or even tolerable evidence as to the cause of 
the Pora TO DISEASE, yet although we do not ourselves 
acquiesce in the opinion, we feel bound to admit 
that the arguments in favour of its being connected 
with some unknown atmospheric agency become 
stronger as facts accumulate, The sudden blight 
of a whole field in the course of a few hours; the 
sudden conversion of acres of green leaves and stems 
into what we can only compare to cured Tobacco, 
and in some places the occurrence of this with one 
sort of Potato only in a field, as we have latel 
seen near Warrington, while another considerable 
breadth in the same field is but little injured, seems 
quite incomprehensible except upon the supposition 
that one sort of Potato is constitutionally more 
liable than another to destruction by the absorption 
of miasm floating in the air. 
It must be confessed too, that the rapid advance 
of the disease from country to country, looks as if it 
were borne on the wind. A few weeks ago a 
traveller proceeding northward found it on every 
field from Glasgow to Edinburgh and Dunkeld, but 
it seemed to have stopped at the pass of Killy- 
crankie, for between that and Inverness not a sign 
of it was visible. But now it has spread all over 
the north, and according to the Aberdeen papers, 
is ravaging the Orkneys. 
A correspondent near Aberdeen, whose crops are 
ruined, has made the following remark, which, con- 
sidering his intelligence and intimate acquaintance 
with physiology, we think deserving of record. 
“In a field containing some three acres planted. 
entirely with Potatoes, all the more early kinds are 
entirely blighted. In the late kind called Cups, 
the disease has made less progress, but my tenant 
scarcely expects that they will escape, and with 
respect to the Long Whites, which he is now taking 
up half ripe for use, he tells me that he finds more 
than one halfthe tubers rotten. In this field a cir- 
cumstance occurred which may be worthy of notice. 
Under the dyke on the north side there is a crop of 
Ferns ; after asoutherly wind these showed marked 
evidence of blight, and gave out a most offensive 
odour. We may, therefore, I think, infer that the 
Potato murrain, like the epidemics which attack 
the animal frame, after it is once established, may 
become infectious. In corroboration of this idea I 
may mention that several of the under leaves of my 
crop of Azores Potatoes have become black and 
withered,which I am inclined to think may be owin, 
to their being in the vicinity of a plot of diseased 
plants, for the stems continue green and vigorous, 
and the tubers, as far as they have been examined, 
appear to be free from taint. 
* We had, about a fortnight or three weeks ago, 
a succession of unusually dense fogs, followed by 
great warmth. Whether these atmospheric changes 
had anything to do with the Potato blight-I will 
not pretend to determine; but it was about that 
time that the distemper made such extensive 
tavages. You are, perhaps, aware that, during the 
prevalence of the cholera in 1832, Dr. Prout ob- 
served an evident increase in the weight of the air, 
for which he could not account on any known prin- 
ciples.” 
Mt is only fair to add that the state of the Bean 
crop and Turnips in some places is by no means in 
opposition to the idea of atmospheric contagion. 
We have also received from Mr. Gopsarr, of He- 
reford, specimens of Egg plants attacked by what is 
certainly the same disease. One of the main diffi- 
culties in admitting contagion or miasm to be the 
cause of this singular disease, consists in this, that 
we have no previous knowledge of plants having 
been so attacked. But it is quite possible that the 
phenomenon may be of common occurrence, though 
it has never been recognised. 
With respect to the state of the crop, we are 
much disposed to believe that in many localities it 
is not by any means so bad as it was last deum 
We have ourselves seen fields in which all the 
leaves were blighted, while the tubers were very 
little affected ; and we are strongly of opinion that 
in such cases care will save a large part of a by no 
means scanty crop. We still adhere to the opinion, 
that the removal of the Potato haulm is a judicious 
measure ; and this, at least, is certain, that when in 
a diseased state it can be of no possible advantage 
to the tubers; so that there can be no harm in 
taking it away. One favourable symptom among 
the ripening tubers is observable, an absence of that 
tendency to become brown, or cinnamon coloured, 
when the cut surface is exposed to the air; a ten- 
dency which of itself indicated an altered state of 
the juices of the Potato. 
to consists either of idle 
conceits already a hundred times exposed, or of 
suggestions previously offered by our intelligent 
correspondents or ourselves, or of crotehets which 
are entirely undeserving of notice. 
May we, in conclusion, ask if any one gained 
