September 6, 1883. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
190 
6 
Til 
Bath and Brighton Shows 
7 
F 
8 
S 
9 
SUN 
IGtii Sunday after Trinity. 
10 
M 
11 
TU 
Royal Horticultural Society; Fruit and Floral Committees at 11 A.M. 
Royal Caledonian Society’s Show, Edinburgh. 
12 
W 
FIRM SOIL FOR VINES AND FRUIT TREES. 
SENTENCE in the letter of “ J. W. R.” on 
page 181 last week relative to the roots of 
Vines penetrating the carriage-drive-like floor 
of a large vinery at Clapham is not without 
significance. It will be in the recollection of 
not a few readers of this Journal that there was 
a time when it was considered little short of a 
crime to set a foot on a Vine border. If a spout 
needed cleaning out hoards must he laid down for walking on 
even if a mile had to he traversed for obtaining them. 
During a rainy day, when the surface of the carefully dug 
border was “podgy,” the precaution was wise; but the pro¬ 
hibition against stepping on the soil was not confined to wet 
weather; it was a rule that was applicable to all circum¬ 
stances—a rigid, inflexible, almost sacred rule, and to ignore 
or forget it was to court opprobrium if not dismissal on the 
part of the unfortunate transgressor. Ranking now as an 
old practitioner rather than as a young student in the art of 
gardening, it is not to be expected that I am enamoured of 
every “new fangled ” notion. Many of the old fashions and 
methods of culture are as good as the new, and some of them 
better; but the time-honoured practice of systematically 
digging Vine and fruit tree borders cannot be defended on 
either philosophical or practical grounds, and yet the custom 
in question is by no means obsolete. 
Some time ago a gentleman came to me with the Journal 
in his hand to express his astonishment that the Editor 
should permit such an exaggerated statement to appear as 
was contained in a sentence having reference to the Vine 
borders at Clovenfords, in which it was intimated that they 
could not be firmer if a regiment of soldiers had been 
exercising in the house. That was putting the case strongly 
no doubt, yet it was not stronger than the example first 
alluded to in these notes, and there is no reason to question 
the substantial accuracy of either of the descriptions. Many 
persons must have visited the Tweed Vineyards since last 
September, and it would be easy for some of them to have 
corrected any inaccurate expression relative to the character 
of the borders ; yet no one, neither visitor nor employe, so far 
as I have seen,has attempted to controvert the “exaggerated 
statement ” that the Editor “ permitted to appear.” It will 
be similarly easy for any of the many gardeners near London 
who are non-believers in the virtues of firm soil for Vines 
to judge for themselves as to the correctness of the compari¬ 
son of the interior of the vinery of Mr. Wallis with a 
carriage drive. It is sometimes well to adduce bold, even 
extreme, examples as proof of the soundness of a principle 
that it is sought to enforce, as mere commonplace statements 
often fail to arrest attention. 
Firm soil for Vine borders and fruit trees is sound in 
principle. If it were not so, what becomes of the practice 
which all competent writers advocate, and all good gardeners 
pursue, of potting Vines for fruiting, Peach trees, Fig trees, 
and Strawberries, firmly if not hard ? It may be urged that 
this is incumbent because of the limited quantity of soil, and 
that it is imperative to press as much as possible in the 
circumscribed space at disposal. Granted, yet Vines, trees, 
and Strawberries thrive under the treatment, and thus show 
that the firmness of the compost is the reverse of injurious. 
This may be regarded as negative evidence, and hence not 
conclusive. Then try the positive. Pot a Vine firmly in a 
10-inch pot and another lightly in a 15-inch ; afford a Peach 
or Fig tree a bushel of soil pressed firmly, and give a corre¬ 
sponding tree a bushel used lightly; place a Strawberry 
plant in a 6-inch pot and make the soil round its roots nearly 
as hard as a board, and another plant in a 9-inch pot with 
the soil as loose as if potting a Balsam; and in all these 
cases note the result of the experiments. In every instance 
the advantages will be seen of firm potting. But something 
besides firm soil and pure water may have contributed to the 
results. Certainly it may, and if the cultivator did not 
afford the aid he perceived was needed, he would not be 
worthy of his calling ; but—and here is the point—give what¬ 
ever he might to the lightly potted examples, they would not 
be similarly good. 
The very fact of firm soil lessening the necessity of using 
so much compost is in itself advantageous, because economi¬ 
cal, and if this is so in pot culture it is equally so in border- 
formation. As a rule Vine and fruit tree borders are made 
needlessly large, because unreasonably light. They involve 
both an undue expenditure of labour and waste of material. 
What is the use of food if it is not consumed ? It is quite 
certain that a vast quantity of food in large loose Vine and 
fruit tree borders is never appropriated. “ What then 
becomes of it. Surely the roots of the Vines and trees will find 
it some time !” is a question that may possibly, if not pro¬ 
bably, be asked. The roots never will find it. First, be¬ 
cause much of it is certainly washed away ; and, secondly, 
because loose soil is never permeated with fibrous roots that 
are essentially health-giving and fruit-producing in character. 
For the multiplication of fibrous roots there must be a 
resisting medium. An examination of the roots of the Vines, 
trees, and Strawberries above alluded to will show this. 
Examine those in light soil, and a limited number will be 
very apparent radiating from the centre straight to the pot; 
the great bulk of the soil in the interior will be for a long 
time unoccupied with fibres, and in the meantime the virtues, 
of the soil are being washed away. It is not until the roots- 
reach the hard sides of the pot that they materially increase 
in number—that is, produce fibres for absorbing nutriment 
from the soil for the support of the plants. In time several 
of these small foraging roots will no doubt find their way 
into the centre of the soil, but they always appear to leave 
the pot reluctantly. This is chiefly because in the interior 
there is not the necessary resisting medium for inducing their 
multiplication, but partly because much of the food they are 
seeking has passed through the drainage, the natural result 
of the frequent applications of water that are necessary for 
keeping loose soil moist. In firm soil the roots are very 
different in character. By the obstruction they meet they 
are divided and subdivided at every point of extension, and 
the entire bulk of soil becomes netted with fibres that with 
their million mouths gather the food that is distributed 
through the soil, and the Vine, tree, or plant is proportionately 
benefited. They have, in fact, appropriated the virtues of 
the soil instead of their having been washed away, firm soil 
not requiring half the quantity of water that a loose mass 
does, and consequently the latter escapes the rinsing process 
to which the former is perforce subjected. 
Thirty years ago I was taught that the reason of tliero 
being so many more shoots near the sides of the pot than in 
the interior of the soil was because they fed on the air that 
reached them through the pores of the earthenware, and that 
consequently the pots should be soft and clean. That the_\ 
should be clean I admit, but that the material should be soft 
(that is, rough and very porous) I deny. I have, in fact, 
outlived the air notion entirely. The whole theory is exploded 
by the simple fact that the roots of trees and plants in glazed 
