Coiling Sj/stetn of Vine Culture. 367 



" The weakest one sent is merely to show what can be done in 

 one season, when a judicious attention is paid to vines to encourage 

 them to do their best. The one in question was a piece of old 

 wood denuded of every excrescence likely to produce any bud, 

 and then coiled into a pot, and placed in a bottom heat, to 

 show His Grace the Duke of Portland the rapid progress which 

 roots would make without the presence of any bud. It was, 

 with some others, shaken out of the pot five different times be- 

 fore His Grace and friends, to show the rapid increase of the 

 roots ; and the roots were broken each time. When repotted a 

 sixth time, and left, it formed a bud, and, by ajudicious stopping, 

 produced the wood which you see. [Stopping the main shoot, 

 as it advanced, at every fifth or sixth bud, and pinching off all 

 the laterals, leaving only a leader.] Some are much finer than 

 the one sent, but are retained for His Grace's future investiga- 

 tion. One of the same fruited last reason. 



" The sultana and black Damascus sent were both young- 

 wood, coiled this time twelvemonth, and are two as fine as any 

 that I have of the same age. Many of them are now full of 

 fruit. None does better than the muscat of Alexandria and its 

 varieties, many of which are at this time exceedingly fine indeed. 



" I have coilers of last season in pots and boxes, with from 

 three bunches to thirty-six on each vine, and of the large and fine 

 kinds. I have coilers of this season with from three to twelve 

 bunches on each, and fine wood for next season's bearing. One 

 white Frontignan has nineteen fine bunches upon it, and was a 

 rootless branch six weeks ago. I have at this time sixty pots of 

 grapes in action, with three hundred and fifty bunches upon 

 them ; many nearly ripe, and finer, of the sorts, than I ever saw 

 upon vines in a border. I have about thirty pots to bring into 

 action, from last spring's coilers ; and, as these are all my best 

 shoots, I believe that they will produce me between five hundred 

 and six hundred bunches of very fine grapes. 



" WelbecJc Gardens, near Ollerton, March 24. 1835." 



Mr. Fish, and another excellent practical gardener, were pre- 

 sent when the hamper was opened ; and if either of them should 

 have any remarks to make on what they saw, they shall be given 

 in a future Number. None of the vines sent were in a growing 

 state ; and, as they were all coils of last year, they merely prove 

 that coiled shoots will make both vigorous roots and wood. 

 Whether the plants thus produced will be more productive and 

 profitable than plants originated from eyes struck the preceding 

 year, remains, as it appears to us, to be proved. Our readers 

 will observe that this is quite a different question from that of the 

 practicability of getting fruit from a coiled vine the first season, 

 which was the chief point insisted upon in Mr. Mearns's former 

 communication, Vol. X. p. 138. — Cond. 



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