THE GRAPE VINE. 75 



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 fol- 

 lowing spring, was adopted for the first time by Mr 

 Thomson of Tweed Vineyard when he planted the 

 immense graperies there. 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 I adopted in the spring of last year for pre- 

 paring something like 1500 young vines, half of 

 which were intended for my own planting. On the 

 7 til 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 vine was isolated on its own piece of turf. The 

 points of their roots being cut, they flagged for a few 

 days, but soon threw out scores of small active roots 

 from every large one that was cut. When this had 

 taken place, a small trowel was run under each square, 



