^6 FRUIT CULTURE UNDER GLASS. 



fruiting in pots the following year, it is only necessary 

 to shift them on into 11 -inch pots, grow them to from 

 6 to 7 feet in the full blaze of the sun, and in all other 

 respects to treat them like those for planting. When 

 the pots are well filled with roots in both cases, water 

 them three times weekly with weak guano and dung- 

 water alternately. 



An excellent system of preparing young vines, both 

 when they are intended to be struck from eyes and 

 planted the same season, and when to be grown in pots 

 for either planting or fruiting in pots the following 

 spring, was adopted for the first time by Mr Thomson 

 of Tweed Vineyard when he planted the immense 

 graperies there, and which he still adopts in preparing 

 young vines for sale. It is described by him as 

 follows : — 



" I indicated that I considered the present system of 

 preparing young vines for planting had a good deal to 

 do with the early declension of the fruitfulness of the 

 vine, and I now proceed to give a sketch of the method 

 1 adopted in the spring of last year for preparing some- 

 thing like 1500 young vines, half of which were intended 

 for my own planting. On the 7th of last February I 

 placed a layer of very fibry turf over the pavement of a 

 pine-pit, under which were pipes for giving bottom-heat. 

 On this turf I laid 4 inches of fine turfy loam ; made 

 small holes in it at about 6 inches apart — these were 

 filled with white sand — and a vine eye was placed in 

 each, so as to be just covered. They started in the 

 usual way, and grew rapidly, throwing out strong roots 

 from the eye. When these roots had begun to interlace 

 each other, and the vines were from 6 inches to 9 inches 

 high, they were cut round by a strong knife, so that each 



