GLEANINGS ON HORTICULTURE. 



13 



while the two or llirec succeeding- l);ise shoots (accordinf^ to tlie 

 scale noticed above) are each allowed to perfect only four feet 

 for next year's bearing wood. No other shoot should be allowed 

 to emanate from the parent stem; and so, year by year, young 

 canes are started, and the old ones cut away as near the stem as 

 possible. 



Heavy bunches of fruit, which would gain prizes at the 

 London Horticultural Society (of which my father is one of the 

 original members), may be grown all over the house on this sys- 

 tem, without weak wood or any confusion of training. This 

 also coincides with the received authority of the present time. 

 Dr. Lindley — "That the system of English grape-growing 

 requires to be changed." The vines should be planted outside 

 the houses, and the stem introduced under the surface of the 

 soil (or be wrapt up in thick matting) into the houses. 



Keep heat up during the day, and reduce it on the ap- 

 proach of night ; and be sure to regulate the temperature in 

 such a manner that your grapes, until they are ripe, should 

 receive no check. Therefore never remove the manure (as I 

 have before remarked) from your border before July, when the 

 berries will have changed colour — have begun to swell- — and 

 (should the roots have been kept in corresponding temperature 

 with the vines inside) will be well grown. 



Should you not find the vines break well, bring the leading- 

 shoots back, and that will check the sap. Give as little air as 

 possible during the blooming or flowering of the vine, and also 

 during the stoning; keeping the thermometer at eighty degrees by 

 day, and seventy degrees at night. Examine the border as soon 

 as this period is over, and give liquid manure (if required) two or 

 three times per week, keeping up a moist atmosphere, as upon this 

 proceeding depends the swelling of the fruit, and no shanking 

 will then occur. Now also fork over the border, which should be 

 twenty-four feet wide, and about three feet six inches deep, 

 having a foot in fall from the house to the main drain ; and if 

 you can easily procure any whole bones of horses, &c., from a 

 tanner, that have not been boiled, bury them one foot from the 

 surface. Strong short-jointed canes, twelve feet long, should 

 be stopped, to increase the stem ; and to produce grapes before 

 the stem attains the thickness of three inches, will be highly' 

 detrimental to the vine (I hope that you will excuse these repe- 

 titions, which are almost unavoidable on such a subject) : and 

 before the grapes colour, syringe morning, noon, and night. 



