138 On the Coiling System of 



as to admit, every warm day, of opening the windows sufficiently 

 to occasion a free circulation of air. 



A gardener, to whom I stated this as my opinion of the subject, 

 has practised my plan every year since, with the most complete 

 success. 



I am, Sir, yours, &c. 

 Dartford Nursery, Jan. 20. 1834. J. D. Parkes. 



Art. XL On the Coiling System of cultivating the Vine in Pots. By 

 Mr. John Mearns, F.H.S., Gardener to his Grace the Duke of 

 Portland, Welbeck, Nottinghamshire. 



Sir, 



As I have communicated an account of my coiling system of 

 cultivating the vine in pots to several persons, and have also 

 given a statement of my experiments to the London Horticul- 

 tural Society, I feel it to be a duty also to lay my practice 

 before you. 



This coiling system is certainly a completely new feature, and, 

 I think, a very valuable one, in the art of grape-growing. Is it 

 not a matter of great importance that, in consequence of my 

 discovery, a gardener, who may goto a situation, in the autumn, 

 where no grapes have previously been growing, may be en- 

 abled to produce there easily, for the ensuing season, from 500 

 to 1000 bunches of fine grapes ? All that are wanting to enable 

 any gardener, so circumstanced, to do this, are, the prunings of 

 the vines from any garden, that would otherwise be thrown 

 away, and, of course, a convenient frame, pit, or house, for 

 growing them in. If abundance of shoots can be procured, 

 and there is a sufficient extent of frames, &c, either temporary or 

 permanent, two, three, or five thousand bunches may thus be 

 produced in a garden where grapes were never seen before. 



The coiling system is nothing more than taking a long shoot 

 or cutting from a 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 round, say from three to six or eight times, 

 the inside of a pot of 12 or 14 in. or more in diameter. The shoot 

 may be of any length, from 6 ft. to 30 ft., and it may be entirely 

 of last year's wood ; or the greater part of it may be of old 

 wood, provided 3 or 4 ft. at the upper end be of new wood ; 

 because, as every gardener knows, the buds from young wood 

 are more certain than those from old wood of producing blossom 

 the first year. The vine being coiled round in the pot, and 

 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 the 



