194 -^y GARDEN. 



Much attention has been given lately to preserve grapes after they 

 are cut. By removing the bunch with a branch and by placing the end 

 of the branch in a bottle of water in a dark room, grapes cut in 

 October will last till June. In Italy they have grapes of the 

 preceding year as late as the month of May, but then the grapes 

 appear to be kept in baskets, and the stalks are withered and <]ried 

 up, and they certainly are not much to be commended. 



Grape vines are propagated by pips, by which new varieties are 

 raised. To obtain new sorts the flower of. one kind is sometimes 

 set with the pollen of a second : in this way Standish's fine new 

 grape was raised ; in this way Snow's Muscat Hamburgh was raised. 

 Probably, however, new kinds come mostly from the pips of former 

 choice varieties. Any variety may be propagated by cuttings, or from a 

 single bud with about half an inch of old wood : this is placed in a 

 pot, covered with earth, and kept in a warm house. It may also 

 be propagated by a young shoot torn out of the axil of a leaf and 

 placed in a pot. The propagation by a single eye is the favourite plan ; 

 and if planted in heat in January and grown rapidly, it makes a 

 large vine before the end of the year. 



Any variety of vine may be propagated by layers or by circum- 

 vallation, as the vine roots freely from any part of its shoots. It 

 even throws out roots spontaneously, under certain circumstances, into 

 the house, but I never could determine exactly what the conditions 

 are, which induce this phenomenon. Sometimes these roots have been 

 apparently traced to pressure on one part of the vines, but at other 

 times no assignable reason could be given. 



Vines may be grafted, when we desire to change an established 

 vine to one of another character ; or they may be inarched. Thompson 

 recommends whip-grafting for vines. Grafting and inarching must 

 be practised in spring, just as the vines are starting, and the shoots 

 will make a growth of ten or twelve feet in a single season. I have 

 seen both processes adopted with perfect success. 



Our vines laden with their grapes are beautiful in autumn. The 

 turf-house, with its depending branches, is ever to be remembered when 



