328 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. [ October 13, 1881. 
able and willing to say how the work should be done ?— 
John Bull. 
PRIMROSES FROM SEED—PRIMULA CAPITATA. 
The same class of plants requires different treatment in different 
soils, and I find that in strong retentive soil nearly all the Prim¬ 
rose tribe succeed best when treated as biennials. In such soils 
the rootstocks and crowns become clubbed together in such a 
compact mass that successful division is hardly possible. When 
seed of the previous year is sown in early spring good flowering 
plants are ready for the next spring and are at their best in their 
second spring, after which they die off or flower badly, and are 
not worth the room they take. Some of them, however, grow so 
coarse as to be almost past flowering at two years old, and a 
better plan is to sow the seed in June as soon as ripe. These 
plants will be rather small in their first spring, but in the second 
year will be better than older plants. 
What I have said applies not only to the coloured varieties of 
Primula acaulis and Primula elatior, the old garden Primrose and 
Polyanthus, but also to the Alpine Auricula and to most of the 
stronger species of Alpine, Himalayan, and Japanese Primrose. 
Primula cortusoides and P. involucrata and some others succeed 
well when divided, so does P. farinosa if care is taken to plant it 
deep in the soil, otherwise it invariably pushes itself out of the 
ground and so perishes. In its native place the plant seems to 
die from this cause at the age of two or three years. 
Amongst the Primroses which do well the first and second years 
from seed, but deteriorate after division, I may mention P. denti- 
culata, P. cashmeriana, P. rosea, and P. capitata. With the last- 
named, which is a comparatively recent introduction, I have been 
so successful that a description of my treatment may be interesting 
to those who wish to grow it. Early in the spring of 1880 I 
obtained three or four plants, probably seedlings raised in 1879. 
These began to flower about the end of May, and in a month 
there was ripe seed. I sowed some at once in a shallow seed pan, 
which I put into a cold frame to protect it from the splashing of 
heavy rain, and in a week the soil was covered with young plants. 
Their growth was very slow at first, but I transplanted them into 
shallow pans as soon as they were large enough to handle, and 
again as often as their growth required it. They were wintered 
in cold frames or a cool greenhouse, and grown on without ever 
losing their leaves, requiring no attention but transplanting when 
they became crowded. 
At the end of March I had upwards of a thousand healthy little 
plants, measuring from 1 inch to 2 inches across. From this time 
they grew rapidly. Many were planted out in different situations 
and aspects ; and I find that, whilst they do best in moist soil and 
an open situation on rockeries, they fail nowhere. ' They began to 
flower about the end of June, when just a year old, and have con¬ 
tinued to grow and flower ever since. Some of them have now 
five or six umbels of flowers and as many separate crowns. 
Others, perhaps one-fifth of the whole, have perished in the effort 
of multiplying their crowns, the crowns and rootstock having 
clubbed together in a hard lump. 
A second sowing from the same seed made in March this year 
came up slowly and sparingly; but some of the plants are already 
flowering. These will give me more trouble to winter than smaller 
plants w'ould do, but will probably flower all through the spring. 
Of the original plants, three in number, I divided one which had 
four crowns into four plants, which I potted singly. All of these 
died but one, and that never made a good plant. The other two 
old plants I left out on my rockery ; they lived through the 
winter and tried to keep their leaves, but the collar of the plants 
decayed in early spring and they were lost. I may say, in con¬ 
clusion, that though my garden is well stocked with hardy plants 
of all kinds, nothing attracts more admiration than my border 
edgings of Primula capitata, which now, on the 3rd of October, 
are still fresh and gay. The colour of the flowers varies from 
lavender to dark violet. Before the last flowers on the umbel are 
open the seed on the earliest flowers of it is ripe ; but owing to 
the ungenial August seed has not been produced very freely this 
year.— C. Wolley Dod. 
THE USE OF FIRE HEAT FOR GRAPES. 
I am much obliged to your correspondent “ Single-handed ” 
for his perfectly disinterested remarks in my favour, for I have 
not the least idea who he is; but he will excuse me saying that he 
is hardly correct in his surmises that I rob Peter to pay Paul by 
burning coal in autumn to make up for lost time by low tempera¬ 
tures in spring. I think I had better state the dates of the starting 
and finishing of some of our crops that afford a fair criterion in 
the matter, and then your readers can judge for themselves 
whether or not the crops are longer in ripening than those which 
are treated to high temperatures. I cut the remainder of our late 
Grapes about the end of February for storage in the fruit-room, 
and started the Vines at the beginning of April, but the buds 
were swelling for two weeks previously. They grew quickly and 
were in flower the first week in May, when the nights were cold 
and frosty, so that the temperature fell low at nights, the fire 
being allowed to die out in the afternoons. The day heat rarely ex¬ 
ceeded 80° or 85° maximum during the summer, and the Grapes 
were nearly all coloured black at the time of the Edinburgh Show, 
as my exhibit showed, but they were not ripe enough to eat. By 
the end of September, however, they were ripe generally, and 
since that period have been kept cool and dry. The Hamburghs 
—a late house—were allowed to come on about the same time; 
and as the crop is used in October when company is at the Hall 
and at the pheasant-shooting in November, fire is rarely employed 
at all during the season, and they are ripe at the beginning of Octo¬ 
ber. We have been cutting them for a week. The Muscats were 
started at the middle of February, and are quite ripe now (Octo¬ 
ber Gth), but earlier bunches were cut ripe some weeks ago. A 
second Hamburgh house started at the 1st of January produced 
ripe fruit the first week in July at the warmest end of the house, 
and at the coolest end two weeks later. The spring was very 
cold and unfavourable, and during the early stages of growth the 
night temperature was often very low, and continually so when 
the Vines were in flower—frequently below 50°. 
I treat Peaches just the same as Vines, subjecting them to a pro¬ 
portionately low temperature, that in early houses frequently fall¬ 
ing to 35° when the trees are in flow r er, and no attempt being made 
to keep them above 40°. From a Royal George Peach started last 
January 1st two and a half dozen ripe Peaches were gathered and 
sent to London on June 13th ; and from a Victoria Nectarine at 
the far end of the house, where there is a coil of hot-w r ater pipes 
less, the first dish was gathered July lGth. The Victoria is a late 
kind. These trees were not hurried in the least, and these two 
trees bore sixty dozen fruits together. Black Prince Strawberries 
introduced into heat the second week in December produced ripe 
fruit the first week of March, and the fruit was ripe in quantity by 
the middle of that month. Madame Hericart de Thury was 
about ten days later. There was no hurrying here either. My 
theory is that low night temperatures in the early stages of 
growth do not retard maturity, or at least very little. I make the 
most of the daylight and the sunshine, but I do not practise 
higher day temperatures than other people. With regard to the 
statement that Grapes cannot be ripened to perfection “so late as 
the end of September or October,” how about Grapes ripened at 
the new year ? I have never tried to ripen our late Grapes before 
October, and they always finish well and keep well, and when I 
have had any surplus fruit to dispose of I could always obtain 
the highest price for it. My neighbour, Mr. Batley of Went¬ 
worth Castle, ripens his Alicantes later than we do, and his crop 
never fails to ripen or to keep. In April one year he was awarded 
the Royal Horticultural Society’s first-class certificate for his 
Grapes, and he afterwards sold the same bunches for 20s. per 
pound in Covent Garden ! He is the best grower and keeper of 
late Grapes I know. It is not so long since he received 15s. per 
pound for his Alicantes some time after the new year, and I 
have received nearly as much frequently. Mr. Batley’s Grapes 
have been fruited for some dozen years or thereabout and have 
not yet missed a crop, and I never remember them being ripe 
at the end of September in any season.—J. Simpson, Worthy. 
P.S.—I find on comparing notes with the foreman that I am 
slightly in error about the Peach house, which was closed on the 
14th of December and began to be fired during the day in January. 
The other dates are correct. I may also add that I advocate low 
temperatures both on the score of economy of fuel, which in my 
case at least is no fiction, and the health of the Vines. I may 
say ithat we rarely ever find a shanked berry in any of our 
vineries. I never scrape, paint, nor wash the Vines, and I do not 
think anyone could show a cleaner bill of health. Spider and 
thrips will never be troublesome under low temperatures. May I 
ask your correspondents if they can point to any spot in the 
world where Vines thrive well naturally where the mean night 
temperatures approach those recommended under glass in this 
country by the advocates of high temperatures ?—J. S. 
Violets. —How well the London, Russian Superb, and Flori- 
bunda Violets are blooming this autumn ! Victoria Regina, on the 
other hand, only produces very few blooms ; indeed I am afraid 
that this fine Violet cannot be classed amongst the autumnal 
bloomers, at least this I yearly find to be its character here. It is, 
