24 



GLEANINGS ON HORTICULTURE. 



also of the temperature of the vinery. Thirdly,— Repeat the 

 application every evening, followed by as regular a syringing, 

 and the disease will be overcome. Fourthly, — Sprinkle three or 

 four pounds of salt over the surface of the border in which the 

 vine grows — imparting salt to the sap as a cure for fungi. 



Upon the more advanced state of this plague, its effects upon 

 the fruit are to produce a swelling and cracking, accompanied by 

 a very strong disagreeable smell, and ending in the grapes be- 

 coming a mass of rottenness. The smell is like that of old 

 mouldy, decayed wood. The same fungus has been found on 

 cinerarias and chrysanthemums. All infected plants in pots 

 should be immediately removed out of the vinery. The mildew 

 upon cucumber leaves may be successfully removed by the same 

 saline application. 



Atmospheric moisture is absolutely essential both for the 

 foliage, and to enable the flower to burst the calyx or cup which 

 holds it; but a sprinkling of the walls and pathways twice or 

 three times a-day would be amply sufficient without saturating 

 the atmosphere with hot steam, an opinion which once was pre- 

 valent. Take a sheet of white paper daily, and collect the pollen 

 or mole dust from the blossoming bunches of good setting sorts, 

 such as black Hamburgh. A gentle flirt about noon each day 

 will shake it down ; and this fine dust, which appears like sul- 

 phur over the paper, must be applied with a dry camel-hair 

 pencil, touching lightly the surface of the blossoms of the Muscat, 

 or Tokay, or Black Damascus, which are shy setters — the tem- 

 perature being at eighty degrees. 



Overdnnging is prejudicial to vines, causing them to run too 

 much to wood, unless the soil is deficient in fertility. 



Vines in boxes, two feet deep and one foot square, planted in 

 very rich mould and broken bones, watered with liquid manure, 

 will produce a succession of ripe grapes, when placed on the 

 Jlues in any forcing-house ; and when ripe, the fruit upon the 

 plants should be removed into a dry, airy temperature, and after 

 being pruned, they will cover twenty square feet of surface. The 

 vines should be so arranged, that the shoots as they advance can 

 be trained under the glass, and be exposed as much as possible to 

 light. As the shoots also advance, train them carefully, and 

 stop the laterals as they appear. Apply soap-suds or manure 

 water (as before stated) in the growing season, but wlien the 

 plants have matured their crop, during the flowering, and when 



