460 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[December, 
other succulents. Mr. 8. is quite delighted 
with the Othonna, and thinks he has found in 
it the plant that horticulturists have long been 
looking for to serve as a carpet to beds in 
which attractive specimens are set out for the 
summer. In last month's Agriculturist we had 
a note upon the use of plants for carpeting the 
soil, and we are glad to add another to the 
small list there given. Those who decorate 
their grounds in summer with plants from the 
greenhouse will never be content to leave the 
soil beneath them bare when they have once 
seen how much a carpet of some kind of ver 
dure beneath them not only sets off the parti- 
cular plants, but contributes to the pleasing 
effect of the whole garden. 
Pruning Grape-Vines. 
With the pruning season numerous inquiries 
come which, reduced to one question, may be 
embodied in one: "What shall I do with my 
grapevines?" One correspondent asks if he 
shall prune according to Fuller or according to 
Mead, and our reply is, Do not follow either 
blindly, but if you do, Fuller is the better guide. 
With the best directions one must exercise 
judgment. Knowing the manner of growth 
of a vine one can use this knowledge to meet 
the requirements of each particular specimen. 
It is easy enough to make vines in a collection 
all alike on paper and to give a fixed rule for 
treating them. The only trouble is that the 
vines will not grow according to the book, and 
though many may be pruned according to pat- 
tern others will have departed, through winter 
killing and other accidents, from the regular 
order. Then again, vines in towns and about 
houses are grown as much for shade as for 
fruit, and a vine thus grown is not amenable 
to the laws of vineyard culture. Let us sup- 
pose that any one of the many who have asked 
us about pruning stands knife in hand before 
his vine. The leaves having fallen, ho plainly 
sees the skeleton. He can distinguish by their 
size and lighter and brighter color the canes 
which grew the past summer. If he has watched 
his vines he knows that each cane began 
last spring as a tender green shoot, that it bore 
leaves and probably fruit. Tie sees that on 
each of these canes there are buds at six inches 
more or 'icss apart. Now he has only to con- 
sider that each of these buds will next spring 
produce a shoot, which will next autumn ripen 
iuto just such a cane as he is now looking at. 
A grape grower, and indeed a fruit grower of 
any kind, needs imagination. lie must be able 
to see "in his mind's eye" what will happen 
next season. lie can see that, if he leaves his 
vine unpruned, next spring shoots innumerable 
from numberless buds will start, some robbing 
and starving the others, and the whole vine 
will become by next fall an inextricable tangle 
of badly-grown canes.' Now let him, using his 
imagination, consider what he wishes to cover 
with shoots next year, no matter whether the 
vine be upon an upright trellis, an arbor, or 
other support, always remembering that the 
growth of next spring from the buds already 
alluded to is the part, and the only part, that 
will bear fruit. He is pruning for 1874 ; the 
buds on the canes that grew in 1873 only will 
(save in exceptional cases which need not be 
considered here) bear fruit. Let his eye start 
from a bud and see if there is room for the 
shoot that will push from it to propeily perfect 
Us fruit. If so leave it ; if not, cut all super- 
fluous buds away. It will go hard with many 
to cut away nine-tenths of the growth that the 
vine has made the past season, but it must be 
done if they would keep their vines under con- 
trol. When vines are grown with reguiar 
arms and upright fruiting canes the rule is to 
cut the uprights back to three buds, one of 
which, being left for safety, is rubbed out in 
the spring. It is safe in fall and winter prun- 
ing to leave one more bud than is needed, and 
in spring, after severe weather is over, to re- 
move the supernumerary one. We have briefly 
stated the main principles upon which all 
pruning depends, and each vine must be treated 
according to its present requirements. The 
novice is naturally timid and afraid of remov- 
ing too much at pruning, but he may be assured 
that more vines •are injured by too little than 
too much pruning. A correspondent at Han- 
nibal, Mo., having grown vines for the purpose 
of laying down horizontal arms, asks us how 
long these arms shall be. We think that six 
feet is long enough for arms of any variety ; 
not that longer arms are not practicable, but 
from the trouble in getting the buds upon a 
long horizontal arm to start evenly in the spring. 
If two or three buds get the start of the others 
they will keep it unless especial care be taken 
by bending the arm to distribute the vigor of 
growth equally. 
Two Blunders in Cranberry Planting. 
We recently visited a plantation of about 
eighteen acres of cranberry vines on a peat 
bog, prepared at an expense of about $050 per 
acre. Here was an outlay for land and im- 
provements of over $8,000. The bog had been 
skimmed and graveled to the depth of eight 
inches, the owner meaning to do his work 
thoroughly, not doubting that nature would 
do hers and return him his capital with interest. 
T'jo land was in the cranberry belt, within a 
mile of.the shore, where the frost would never 
prevent a full crop. It was an excellent peat 
bottom, where cranberries ought to flourish. 
It was thoroughly prepared and planted with 
fruitful vines from productive bogs. But this 
money was all laid out upon land relying 
mainly upon the rainfall to flow it. There is 
no stream running through to flood it and keep 
it flooded until June. So the winter fre- 
quently sets in with no water to cover the 
vines, and when the water comes and just 
covers the vines, there is nothing to prevent 
freezing, and the ice lifts the plants by the 
roots and they perish by the thousand. Or if 
the gate is not shut, and the water runs otf, 
the surface is frozen and thawed during the 
winter, and many plants are destroyed in this 
way. The one indispensable thing in success- 
ful cranberry culture has been overlooked. 
On Capo Cod flowing is deemed of so much 
importance that in some cases water is pumped 
on to the plantation in the fall and kept there 
at large expense through the winter. It is 
only in case of early and abundant fall rains 
that this plantation can be flowed in season to 
escape damage by the ice. There may bo oc- 
casionally good crops here, but there can be 
no uniform success, owing to this blunder. Is 
it not strange, wlien there is so much unoccu- 
pied peat swp.uip, with all the facilities for 
flowagc, that intelligent men will lay out their 
money lavishly upon cranberry plantations 
where snecess is clearly impossible ? A second 
blunder was the large growth of weeds per- 
rnit'ed the second season. The theory is that 
cranberry vines will get such possession of the 
soil the third season that thereafter they will 
be able to maintain their supremacy without 
much further care. The sand here was of fair 
quality, though not of the best. It had been 
put on so deep that many of the vines had not 
struck through iuto the peat, and the growth 
was rather feeble. The weeds, on the con- 
trary, had grown with great luxuriance, and it 
would cost at least a thousand dollars to clear 
the plantation and put it in order for the next 
season. A little timely labor would have saved 
all this expense and the loss of growth in the 
vines from the choking of weeds, which is a 
much more important matter. The mysteries 
of cranberry growing are not all solved, but 
certain things are well known to be indispensa- 
ble. Winter flowing is one of them, and an- 
other is the persistent cleaning of the plants 
through three summers at least. It is true 
that cranberries scald sometimes on new planta- 
tions from the want of vegetation to protect the 
fruit ; but these early crops are not of much 
value, and it is much better that vegetation 
around the fruit should be the vines that bear 
it, than grass and weeds that are occupying the 
room which the vines need. 
The Grounds and Greenhouses of 
George Such. 
BY PETER HENDERSON. 
Mr. Such's place is located about three miles 
from the village of South Amboy, N. J., right 
in the midst of a wilderness of sand and scrub- 
oak ; but that the sand has some virtue as a 
soil is everywhere apparent from the health}' 
condition of nearly everything cultivated. 
Lilies, Tuberoses, and Gladiolus, and other 
bulbs which are grown in large quantities, are 
particularly fine. The finest specimens of 
Akcbia qucnata and the new Ampeloptis tricus- 
pidata that I ever saw are here ; the former in 
an angle in a house 40 feet high, and no doubt 
would be double that height had Mr. Such 
only built his house high enough. Bedded in 
the ground was a most interesting collection 
of Agaves (Century Plant), numbering over a 
dozen distinct species ; they were plants rang- 
ing from a foot to four feet in diameter, and 
when grown to the size that they are capable 
of would' form a most striking display. 
Our run through the grounds was rapid, and 
no doubt many objects of interesf were over- 
looked. But the greenhouse department was 
as carefully examined as our two hours' time 
would admit of, and I candidly admit that 
never before to me was two hours spent with 
greater interest than in examining the wonder- 
ful collection that Mr. Such has accumulated 
here. The first building entered was the 
Orchid house. I have no pretensions to be an 
expert in Orchid culture, but it seemed to me 
that this most valuable collection was in the 
highest degree of health and vigor. Many of 
the specimens were unusually large ana fine. 
Some plants of Oncidium Papilio (Butterfly- 
plant) were in bloom, as was Perhteria data 
(noly Spirit plant of the Spanish Americans) 
and a specimen of Caitkya Schilleriana that 
were alone worth coming to see. We were 
surprised to find so many large specimens of 
Orchids; plants whose individual value might 
buy a Western farm. A plant of the beautiful 
Dendrohium nobile, such as we saw here, would 
be a rarity even in Europe. Last year, Mr. 
Such informed me, it had ovrr 500 blooms, 
which were quickly sold to the New York 
bouquet-makers at 16 cents each, or $80 for the 
