334 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[June, 
useful edging, ami deserves more attention in 
this respect than it lias yet received in this coun- 
try. No plant is so valuable as the Ivy for in- 
door green, and it has tlie great advantage that 
it grows well in the shade, and will endure neg- 
lect, and the extremes tliat the temperature of 
our dwellings often present. For hanging bask- 
ets, vases, and all such uses, it is always in re- 
quisition, and it is often grown in pots and train- 
ed around pictures, over doors, windows, etc. 
There is one house ■which we frequently pass, 
which has a complete window screen of Ivy, 
which is so fresh and beautiful that we always 
stop to pay it the homage of our admiration. 
We said that the plant would endure neglect, 
but it well re- 
pays attention 
and an occasion- 
al washing ' of 
the foliage is 
labor well be- 
stowed. Now is 
the time to pre- 
pare for these in- 
stake and bow system, from the fact that the 
bearing canes are secured to the wire, as shown 
in the sketch, affording a better opportunity for 
sun and free circulation of air, as well as for 
pinching the laterals. The two canes grown 
Fig. 1. 
door decorations by starting the plants; and 
nothing is easier. We have raised fair plants in 
oneseason from a single joint, but it is better to 
use cuttings a foot or so long. Put in good soil 
in a shady place, they will seldom fail to take root 
and make plants. Wliere tlie plants are intended 
for indoor uses, they should be trained up to 
stakes, as if allowed to lie upon the ground they 
will root at every joiut,and will also be quite one- 
sided when they are potted in autumn. Those 
who have Ivy in pots, etc., indoors, should put 
them in a shady place and give them sufficient 
water. It is well to repot in ricli soil in order 
to get a good growtlx during the summer, and 
if the plants are grown upon frames to give a 
little care now and then to pruning and training. 
Notes on Grapes and Grape Culture. 
Perhaps no plant has been made to assume so 
many shapes as the vine, and whoever looks 
over the various European and American works 
on vine culture cannot but be astonished at the 
number of plans tliat have been described. All 
rational training of the vine has the sameobject 
in view : tlie production of the greatest quanti- 
ty of the best fruit in the smallest space. In 
striving to attain tliis end, it is not surprising 
that different persons hit upon the same plan, 
and it has happened several times that our cor- 
respondents have sent us an account of their 
methods of train- 
ing, which were 
simply repetitions 
of old ones. A 
method has re- 
cently been de- 
scribed by F. M. 
J., Augusta, Iowa, 
which is almost 
precisely one that 
has been for a 
long time in use 
in France, but as 
it is one which 
we believe we 
have not given, 
we illustrate it. 
It is no doubt 
original with Mr. J., but he will find 
same thing in principle, though differing in 
unimportant details, in Guyot and other French 
writers on vine culture. Mr. J. says: "I send 
you what I consider an improvement on the 
Fig. 8. 
this year, flg. 2, are trained to stakes. In No- 
vember these will be pruned to 4 feet in length, 
and the next year fastened to the wire, as in fig. 
1. Tlie next summer two more canes will be 
grown to the stakes, to replace the canes that 
have fruited, and which will be cut away at the 
next pruning. To make a support of this kind, 
set at each end of the row a good sized fence 
post, to which fasten No. 10 or 13 galvanized 
wire, at about 18 inches from the ground. Split 
or sawed stakes, 6 feet long and 
2 inches square, are set at each vine, 
and a saw scarf is made at 18 or 20 
inches from the ground, to receive 
the wire. [Better use staples. — Ed.] 
A good distance for rampant growing' 
vines is 6 feet apart, in rows 8 feet - 
apart. This plan has the advan- 
tage of bringing the fruit near the ground, 
which is especially desirable in cold localities." 
The author of My Vineyard at Lakeview has 
another modification of this mode of training. 
Ills vines are supplied with strong stakes, and 
are placed 6 feet apart. Two caues are grown 
each year to bear fruit the next. Finding that 
four canes to a stake made a crowded mass of 
foliage and rendered pruning difficult, he took 
strips of inch board, 9'|j feet long, and nailed 
tliem from near the bottom of one stake to the 
top of the next. Upon these di.agonal slats are 
trained the canes for next year's fruit, while 
those in bearing are kept upon the stakes. The 
explanation unnecessary. While the author 
does not think it the best method for large vine- 
yards, he finds it very satisfactory in plantations 
of moderate size and in garden culture. 
Mr. 0. G. Green, Hudson, N. Y., communi- 
cates a method practised by Messrs. J. F. Crank 
& Co., Penn Yan, N. Y., in layering the Dela- 
ware, which is slow to root with the ordinary 
treatment. They lay a cane down in a trench 6 
inches deep, and fasten it there by pegs. The 
cane is kept in this position tmtil the shoots 
have made a growth of three or four inches, 
when it is taken up, and the bark cut from the 
lower side of the cane for its whole length. It 
is then replaced in the trench and covered with 
one or t%vo inches of earth, and as the young 
growth increases in height, more earth is gradu- 
ally addetl. Roots readily push from the por- 
tion deprived of its bark, and in autumn he gets 
as many well rooted plants as there were buds 
upon the cane. The only thing peculiar to the 
process of Messrs. C. seems to be the removal 
of the bark ; the treatment of the layer in 
otlier respects will be found described and il- 
lustrated on page 61 of Fuller's Grape Culturist. 
In England a ground vinery has been for a 
few years past quite popular among fruit grow-. 
ers. It is there used for growing the European 
grape, and will doubtless become more or less 
used by us. It is simply a low cold-frame 
placed over the vine, which is trained close to 
the ground. So much are these in demand in 
England, that we find them advertised by sev- 
eral makers as regular articles of trade. We 
Fig. 3. — TBArNING BT THE AUTHOR OF " MT VINETAKD." 
the 1 result is, the fruit ripens better, and the new 
wood has a better chance to develop and ma- 
ture, while the operation of summer pruning is 
greatly facilitated. Tlic cut, fig. 3, taken from 
the work above mentioned, will render other 
a i a d 
Fig. 4. — GROUND TTNERT. 
give a figure of one from Rivers' Miniature 
Fruit Garden. It consists of two sashes put to- 
gether like a roof The usual lengtli is 7 feet, 
width of base 30 inches, slope of roof 20 inches, 
depth in center IG inches. Tliese are the 
dimensions for a single vine, but for two vines 
they are made larger. By placing frames end 
to end, the length of the vinery may be in- 
increased as required. The ends are closed, an 
aperture being arranged at a, which may 
be opened for the escape of hot air. The 
frame is set upon bricks, (d, d), laid a few 
inches apart, leaving spaces {c, c) for ventilation. 
The ground within is covered with slates or 
tiles,and the vine, 
planted at one 
end, is laid direct- 
ly on the slates 
and is fostened 
there by pegs. 
The fruit ripens 
laying upon the 
slates,, and the 
BlackHamburgh, 
etc., are said to 
attain perfection 
when grown in 
this way. How 
far our intense 
suns will require 
a modification of 
this method, by 
raising the vines above the slates, giving more 
care to the ventilation, etc., practice can only 
determine. While in England the vines need no 
protection during tlie winter, with us they 
would need to be covered with great care, 
