YOUNG VINES FOE PLANTING. 



21 



receive wlieii plunged in hot tan, die off during the 

 winter, and are of no service to the plants when planted 

 the following spring ; and though the canes, in conse- 

 quence of being forced on in this way, may look better 

 than those grown without bottom heat, they are not so 

 in reality. Far better have a well-ripened though 

 smaller cane, with a pot full of hard, fibry, active roots, 

 that will survive the winter, and come early into action 

 in the spring. My objection to the plants being 

 crowded in dark houses, as they are often to be seen, 

 is, that many of them get no direct light from the sun 

 on their foliage; and, though they may make good- 

 sized canes, cannot be properly ripened, and become 

 fit foundations for healthy fruitful vines. When vines 

 are thus crowded during their season of growth, and 

 are set outdoors, perhaps against a wall or hedge, to 

 stand till sold, they are sure to receive permanent 

 injury from even a moderate degree cf frost, such as 

 would not injure well-ripened canes. As a rule, it is 

 injudicious to expose young or old vines, ripened in 

 this country, to more than 1 0° of frost at any time. 



When the vines are to be struck from eyes, I have 

 found it best to select the eyes from well-ripened wood, 

 from a house where the grapes have been cut in June 

 or July. I cut the wood right across, about half an 

 inch on each side of the eye, and then take a small 

 slice off the side of it, longitudinally, opposite the eye, 

 making the cuts as clean as possible. I then have 

 4-inch pots filled with light turfy loam, and a small 

 portion of thoroughly decayed leaf-mould. When the 

 pot is filled with this soil, I make a hole that would 

 contain a walnut in the centre of it, which I fill up 

 with fine white sand, and in the centre of the sand the 

 eye is deposited, when a little of the compost is placed 



