440 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ Jane 1, 1882. 
flowers with white centres, very freely produced, and is most 
easily cultivated, as it is of free growth. Elegans produces 
flowers as deep in colour, with trusses not quite so large, but 
more freely produced. The plant is very dwarf in habit, and 
it is one likely to be more grown than any with the same colour. 
Leiantha is very free, producing good trusses of bright scarlet 
flowers, but rather small ; nevertheless it is a very useful plant. 
Longiflora flammea has flowers similar in form and size to the 
typical form, of a rosy pink colour, with the tubes rather paler. 
It is very desirable on account of the flower form, being so 
distinct from all the other scarlet or pink-flowered forms. 
Heine des Hoses is an excellent variety, producing large trusses 
of pink flowers freely, and is worthy of attention. President 
Garfield is the name of a hybrid, a novelty of this season from 
America. It is said to produce fine trusses of rich pink double 
flowers very freely—characteristics which, if confirmed by the 
plant, should insure for it a leading place among Bouvardias. 
We trust it fully merits the eulogiums given to it, which, by 
the way, there is no reason to doubt. It is advertised to be 
sent out this month.—N. 
VINES AT LONGLEAT. 
( Continued from page 3S0.) 
DAMPING DOWN. 
Intimately connected with the subjects of tempera¬ 
ture and ventilating is that of damping down, or 
sprinkling the paths and borders with water for the 
purpose of creating a moist atmosphere. By many 
cultivators this is done once or twice a day at stated 
times during all weathers, and where the houses are 
small and the temperatures high I have no doubt it is 
necessary to damp frequently, but still I think there 
are some very erroneous ideas held concerning it, and 
that the practice is frequently carried to excess. It is 
plain to me that a moist atmosphere, supposing it 
were necessary, cannot be secured at all times by 
merely keeping the floor damp, or why do we often see 
deep-rooted plants in the open air drooping more dur¬ 
ing intervals of sunshine in showery weather than they 
do during settled sunshine provided they are not dry at 
the roots ? There is a saying frequently used here, 
that “ it dries too fast to last; ” and the fact is very 
noticeable that when there is what the laundresses call 
“ a good drying day,” although the surface of the ground 
may have had an inch of rain on it within the previous 
twenty-four hours, the leaves of plants droop from the 
effects of the parched atmosphere, and there is every 
probability of rain soon following. When this is the case 
outside it will affect our houses more or less in spite 
of all our damping, according to the amount of ventila¬ 
tion given and the difference between the internal 
and external temperatures; also it will make a differ¬ 
ence in this respect whether the ventilation has been 
given before the sun acted on the temperature of the 
house or after. I have stated before that if I enter a 
house with which I am pretty well acquainted at ten 
o’clock in the day for the first time, I can generally tell 
if the ventilation has not been given sufficiently early, 
and I have no doubt the difference is to be attributed 
principally to the hygrometrical state of the atmo¬ 
sphere. If the temperature had been allowed to rise 
considerably before air was given there would be a 
much larger amount of moisture escape than when it 
is given in anticipation of the rise, and when the differ¬ 
ence is very marked it will last all day, and no amount 
of damping down will overcome it till the ventilators 
are closed or nearly so. At such times the tempera¬ 
ture appears to be much higher than the thermometer 
indicates, and the atmosphere is very suggestive of 
east winds and red spider. 
We must not, then, depend on damping down exclu¬ 
sively to produce the soft atmosphere so necessary to 
the healthy growth of our plants, but damping occa¬ 
sionally is necessary, and I believe its greatest benefit 
is felt when performed immediately after closing during 
the afternoon or evening of a hot dry day. Continual 
damping when the weather is neither hot nor dry is 
positively injurious, and I have often seen it carried to 
great excess, so that the border in many places became 
almost sour on the surface, and if it was not stirred 
occasionally moss would soon be seen growing there. 
It is best to allow the surface to become dry sometimes 
for the purpose of securing aeration of the border, but 
the parts situate near the liot-water pipes should be 
frequently and heavily damped. My large house on 
the average is probably damped down about once a 
week after growth commences, but frequently it goes 
double that time; and, on the other hand, during the 
hottest and driest weather it is sometimes damped 
several evenings in succession. I do not advise this 
plan to be followed strictly in smaller houses, but I do 
advise judgment to be used, and not to have damping- 
down done regularly let the weather be what it may, 
for even if it does no harm to the plants it is, when 
performed unnecessarily, a waste of time, and has an 
adverse influence on the young men who are made to 
do it, by encouraging that which they are always too 
prone to—to work by rule and line without using their 
heads. 
Damping down is quite as necessary during the 
flowering and ripening periods as at any other time, 
and I will notice some of the popular fallacies regard¬ 
ing the action of damp at such times when treating on 
the subject of watering. My Vines are never syringed ; 
such a practice can do no good where there is nothing 
to make the foliage dirty, and it may do a considerable 
amount of harm in the way of producing flabby foliage, 
aerial roots, and imperfectly coloured fruit. 
WATERING. 
Probably the reason so few cultivators succeed with 
Vine borders which are entirely inside is that they never 
give them sufficient water. The rainfall of any given 
district must not be taken for a guide ; the quantity 
of water a certain border requires can only be found out 
by practice on the spot. It will be remembered that 
my borders have no rubble in them, and are made very 
firm, so that they possibly only require half as much 
water as an average border; nevertheless the quantity 
given them will appear large. We cannot with any 
appliances we may invent use the water so economi¬ 
cally and make it go as far as when it falls naturally 
from the clouds; and besides, the borders being alto¬ 
gether artificial and drained so that they cannot become 
waterlogged, it is better to give them too much than 
too little. Till I found out the quantity required I 
used frequently to make a hole with a trowel three 
parts through the border in several places, feel the soil 
at different depths, press a portion of it firmly in my 
hand, and let it fall on the solid ground to see if there 
was sufficient moisture in it to prevent it falling in 
pieces freely. If it would crumble when allowed to 
fall in this way it plainly wanted water, for we never 
find soil in which a Vine is thriving naturally become 
so dry as this, and most assuredly if our borders re- 
