542 



PRACTICE OF GARDENING. 



P.^aT III. 



Hamburgh, red Frontignac, black prince, black muscadel, red Lombardy, royal muscadine, white 

 muscadine, white Frontignac, white muscat, white sweetwater, white muscadel, and white Svrian," 

 {Gard. Hem, p. 77.) 



2952. Nicol, for geiu'ral forcings names twenty-four sorts, as under, marking those he esteems the best 

 with an asterisk («). 



While Grapes. Black Grapes. 



^Sweetwater, *muscadiiie, *royaI mus- Muscadine, ^Frontignac, *Hamburgh, 

 cadine, ^Frontignac, Hamburgh, raisin, *rauscat of Alexandria, cluster, *Con- 

 *tokay, *passe musque, *mu!>cat of Alex- stantia, St. Peter's, 

 andria, *Constantia. 



2953. SpeecMi/, Forsyth, and Abcrcro7nbic give long descriptive lists, and leave the reader to choose from 

 their descriptions. 



2954. Sort uf plants. Vines are to be had in the nurseries, propagated either from 

 layers, cuttings, or eyes ; and provided the plants be well rooted, and the wood ripe, 

 many are of opinion that it is a matter of indifference from which class the choice is 

 made. Justice prefers plants raised from cuttings, as likely to have ripened roots ; but 

 where they have to be sent from a distance, he prefers to plants, cutting^ containing an 

 inch or two of the old wood, and twelve or fourteen inches of the new. These he plants 

 at once where they are to remain, as practised in France. Speechly prefers plants which 

 have been raised from the eye, for the following reasons : " They have more abundant 

 roots, grow shorter jointed, are more prolific, and will, if permitted, come into bearing 

 the second year." Abercrombie takes indifferently plants raised from cuttings or eyes ; 

 and M'Phail does not direct any preference. Nicol approves of " plants raised from 

 cuttings that have been two seasons in pots, and have been properly treated and trained 

 to a single shoot." The shoot of the first year should have been headed down to within 

 six or eight inches of the pot ; and that of last season to four, or, at most, five eyes. 

 ** The plants should have been fresh potted into good earth last season, and should be 

 now in pots of nine or ten inches diameter, well rooted, and healthy. Such plants are 

 much to be preferred to those raised from layers that are seldom well rooted, and never 

 grow so freely as plants raised from cuttings." 



2955. Cuttings and eyes. It may be remarked, that the most general mode of pro- 

 pagating the vine at present, in the best nurseries, is from buds or eyes ; and that, both 

 as the cause and effect, such plants are made choice of by most gardeners. Tlie great ob- 

 jection to layers is, that being propagated in the open air, they grow till checked by frost, 

 and then do not ripen their roots, which generally die off, so that the plants make very 

 weak shoots the first year after planting. Layers kept in the nursery one year after being 

 separated from the mother plant, are, of course, not so liable to this objection. Plants 

 raised from cuttings or eyes, having no adventitious support, produce no more roots than 

 what the shoot and leaves enable tliem to lipen, and at two years' growth, may be justly 

 considered as the best description of plants for stocking a house. 



2956. Expedition proj)agation. Neill (Edin. Encyc. art. Hort.) describes <* an in- 

 comparably more speedy mode of storing a new grape-house," than that of employing any 

 description of plants to be procured from a nursery. 



2957. This mode is only to be adopted " where a vinery previously exists in the garden, or where there is 

 a friend's vinery in the neighborhood. It is practised "frequently at the gardens of Dalkeith House, by 

 James Macdonald, head gardener there, and a distinguished member of the Caledonian Horticultural So- 

 ciety ; and Neill has been an ocular witness of * its complete success.' In the end of June or beginning of 

 July, when the vines have made new shoots from ten to twelve feet long, and about the time of the fruit 

 setting, he selects any supernumerary shoots, and, loosening them from the trellis, bends them down so as 

 to make them form a double or flexure in a pot filled with earth, generally a mixture of loam and vegetable 

 mould ; taking care to make a portion of last year's wood, containing a joint, pass into the soil in the pot. 

 The earth is kept in a wet state ; and at the same time a moist warm air is maintained in the house. In 

 about a week or ten days, roots are found to have proceeded plentifully from the joint of last year's wood, 

 and these may be seen by merely stirring the surface of the earth ; or sometimes they may be observed 

 penetrating to its surface. The layer may now be safely detached. Very frequently it contains one or two 

 bunches of grapes, which continue to grow and come to perfection. A layer cut ofF in the beginning of July 

 generally attains, by the end of October, the length of fifteen or twenty feet. A new grape-house, there- 

 fore, might in this way be as completely furnished with plants in three months, as by the usual method, 

 above described, in three years. Supposing the layers to be made on the 1st of July, they might be cut, 

 and removed to the new house on the 9th : by the 9th of October, the roof would be completely covered 

 with shoots, and next season the house would yield a full crop of grapes. It is not meant that they should 

 be allowed to do so, if permanently bearing plants be wished for ; on the contrary, they should be suffered 

 to carry only a very moderate crop, as it is pretty evident that the roots could not sustain the demand of a 

 full one, or at any rate, that the plants would necessarily show their exhausted state, by barrenness in the 

 following season. By this means the more delicate kinds, as the Frontignac, may be quickly propagated ; 

 we have seen layers of the Gibraltar or red Hamburgh made in the beginning of Jidy, reach the length of 

 thirteen feet before the end of the month, yielding at the same time two or three bunches of grapes. The 

 more hardy, such as the white muscadine, form still stronger plants in that space of time. Little difficulty 

 is experienced in removing the plants from the pots into the holes prepared for them : if there be fears 

 of preserving a ball of earth to the new roots, the pots may be sunk with them, and then broken and re- 

 moved ; or the plants may be kept in the pots till autumn, when they may very easily be taken out of them 

 without detriment. Macdonald's experience does not lead him to think that plants propagated in this 

 way are less durable than those procured by slower means, and where the roots and branches bear a rela- 

 tive proportion to each other. But supposing they were found to be less durable, it is evident that one may 

 thus very easily keep grape-houses constantly stored with healthy fruit-bearing plants, and that the kinds 

 may be changed almost at pleasure. When it happens that too much bearing wood has been trained in, 

 the plants are relieved, and sufficient sun and air admitted, by thus removing two or three shoots ; and 

 supposing these to contain each several bunches of some fine sort of grape, they are not lost, but may be 

 ripened, by setting the jwts on the side shelves, or flue-trellis, of the pinery, or any hot-house." We have 

 tried this mode with success, and find it greatly aided by ringing the larger at or below the tongue. 



Red Grapes* 

 *Frontignac, *griz.zly Frontignac, rai- 

 sin, *tlanie tofcay, *Ix)nibardy. 



