November 25,1880. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 477 
able variety it will be out of doors only. But of the others we have 
had very many fine blooms from plants grown in pots, and more 
especially from those budded on a large plant of Solfaterre. This 
makes a capital stock, and I advise anyone having plants of 
Solfaterre to bud in some of the Hybrid Teas. The dark ones, Hon. 
Geo. Bancroft and Duke of Connaught, will prove, I think, the 
most valuable ; but all the rest, excepting Jean Sisley and Nancy 
Lee, are promising Boses, and I think no one will make a mistake 
in procuring them in quantities for the purpose of growing under 
glass. Those that I like the least are Nancy Lee, Jean Sisley, 
Beauty of Staplefoi'd, and Duchess of Westminster, none of them 
being fragrant. Hon. Geo. Bancroft, Duchess of Connaught, and 
Viscountess Falmouth are all highly scented ; this adds greatly to 
their merit. Michael Saunders and Pearl have also an agreeable 
perfume, the latter with a decided Bourbon odour. Duke of 
Connaught has no odour, but is of good form and a fine crimson 
colour, making a decided improvement on Duchess of Edin¬ 
burgh.—H. B. Ellw anger. 
GROWING GRAPES WITHOUT FIRE HEAT. 
I have many times seen particulars in the Journal concerning 
the advantages of growing Grapes without fire heat, and that has 
induced me to give a brief description of my own success in that 
way. I first wish to acknowledge that I owe all my success to the 
instructions upon the subject contained in the Journal, for a few 
years ago I knew but little of Vine culture. My vinery is a span- 
roof house extending east and west; it is G4 feet long, with a 
partition in the centre. The Vines are planted inside in a border 
4 feet 6 inches wide, the outside border being G feet wide. Every 
year I train up a young rod and cut out the old one, because I 
find the young rod succeeds best, allowing a length of 6 feet to 
each. 
The following varieties are growing in the early house :—Early 
White Malvasia, a good Grape, but the berries are very irregular 
in size ; Due de Malakoff is a good early variety, but the berries are 
not large ; both berries and bunches have, however been larger 
this year than we ever had them before. Chaptal is a good bearer 
with very large bunches, and keeps well ; a fine white Grape. 
Le Sucre is a satisfactory white variety, fruit very juicy and sweet. 
Black Hamburgh is useful, but some of the Grapes turn sour, 
though this year they are not nearly so bad. Trentham Black is 
an excellent variety ; it has one defect—like Early White Malvasia, 
the berries are very irregular. White Tokay has large bunches 
and sets well, almost too well, as there are so many to cut out at 
thinning, but the fruit does not keep so well as some others. We 
had 136 bunches of good size in this house. In the second or 
later house the undermentioned varieties are grown :—Calabrian 
Raisin I cannot speak favourably of, as the berries always crack. 
I had three Vines at first, then two were destroyed, and the other 
tried once more, but with no better success, so that is now removed. 
Bowood Muscat is excellent ; the bunches are very large.—from 
9 to 12 inches long, and ripened well this year. Lady Downe’s is 
a useful late Grape, as it sets and bears well in our cold house, 
but the berries are not large. Mrs. Pince’s Black Muscat is an 
excellent Grape ; bunches very long, many a foot in length. Last 
year there were many small berries, due, I expect, to the cold 
weather : but this year I closed the house earlier, and there is a 
fine crop. Another Grape here is called Muscat Escholata, but 
incorrectly, as it is a black variety and late. The berries are 
large and very even, and they set well; it is distinct from Lady 
Downe’s. We have a better crop of Grapes this year than ever 
we had before, for we had 236 bunches in the second house. I 
was informed a short time since that I could not grow Grapes 
without fire heat, but my informant was greatly surprised to see 
this house with 236 hunches well coloured.— F. Walker. 
[The Grapes are very useful table fruit, Mrs. Pince’s Muscat 
being of excellent quality. The variety named Muscat Escholata 
is, we think, Gros Guillaume.—E ds.] 
LILY OF THE VALLEY. 
Under this heading, on page 453, Mr. Bardney has given some 
very instructive notes, and has, in fact, left but little to be said on 
the subject of forcing this beautiful flower. That the Lily of the 
Valley is one of the most popular flowers grown is not surprising, 
as it really possesses more desirable qualities than any plant with 
which I am acquainted. Imported roots at times are extremely 
disappointing, as not only will they not flower during November 
and sometimes December, but instances have come under my 
notice where they would not start at all. This failure, as Mr. 
Bardney suggests, may probably be owing to the crowns being badly 
ripened, and therefore liable to be irrecoverably injured by hard 
forcing. They might have been started too early, but the first 
week in January can scarcely be called early; or they might 
have been placed in too strong bottom heat, and other reasons 
have been suggested as the cause of failure. It is quite certain 
something was radically wrong, as they never started, although 
the crowns remained for twelve months in apparently as fresh a 
condition as when received. 
Imported clumps are often received in a hard dry state, and 
I am inclined to think are often either fatally injured or materially 
weakened by potting them in such a state, as they are never 
thoroughly moistened. My practice with such dry clumps is to 
place them in a tub of water till saturated, allowing them to drain 
during a night, and prior to potting loosening the bottom and 
sides of the ball with a pointed stick. Then, again, rather than 
pot high, should the balls be too long I prefer reducing them, as 
moisture the roots must have. Properly potted and plunged in a 
gentle hotbed composed principally of leaves and covered with 
some of the fermenting material, they will generally flower freely 
enough early in the year. 
In my estimation well-prepared home-grown crowns are pre¬ 
ferable for forcing, and frequently give as strong blooms as 
the imported clumps. H well-established beds are available 
for the work, it is the best plan to lift large flat square clumps 
of roots, placing them m ordinary bedding Pelargonium boxes, 
and adding a little good soil about the roots. The boxes can 
be placed on hotbeds in the early vineries or forcing pits at 
intervals according to the demand. If plants in pots are required 
for any particular purpose, when the blooms are expanding the 
roots may be taken out, carefully divided into the sizes required, 
and potted off, working in a few single pieces wherever requisite 
for symmetry. Good even pots can thus be had without any in j ury 
accruing to the bloom. One box of crowns will yield a great 
quantity of cut blooms with a small amount of trouble. An open 
position and a rather strong clayey loam suits the Lily of the 
Valley admirably, and a plot a few feet square would supply clumps 
for lifting, and also a number of late blooms sufficient for most 
establishments. Some roots must be replanted every season, and 
for this I prefer using either the latest forced crowns, or, better 
still, some of the weakest, planting single crowns rather thickly 
and irregularly prior to the commencement of growth. The Lily 
of the Valley is a moisture-loving plant, and will repay a mulching 
of manure given at the present time, or before growth commences. 
—W. Iggulden. 
POTATO DISEASE AND RAINFALL. 
“ Interloper ” has not replied to my queries with regard to 
the rainfall theory of the Potato disease, and thinks that it is bad 
logic on my part to ask him to do so. I do not see that. One of 
the first axioms of Euclid is that things which are equal to the 
same thing are equal to one another, and “Interloper” in a 
late number of the Journal asks the advocates of the fungus 
theory, of which I am one, to harmonise certain facts with that 
theory of disease, and it is only fair, I think, to ask him to follow 
suit. He pleads want of time to work up the matter, but the 
real truth is no amount of time would be of any avail. The 
rainfall theory is unsound, and the difficulties with regard to it 
are so many that it cannot be entertained. 
Amongst all the scientific witnesses examined before the Royal 
Commission I do not remember one who did not regard the 
fungus, the Peronospora infestans, as the only true cause of the 
malady. This fungus is closely allied to the family of the 
Saprolegniem which only flourish in water, therefore it is not to 
be wondered at that it progresses much more rapidly in wet 
weather ; and being a native of Bogota and other places on the 
western coast of South America, a warmer climate than ours, it 
also likes warmth. Bearing in mind these facts and a few others 
with regal d to the disease, everything can be satisfactorily ex¬ 
plained and the parts fitted together like the pieces of a Chinese 
puzzle. 
I will now refer to a few of “Interloper’s ” queries. “ The 
outside roots of a row and the outside rows of a patch or field 
always give a larger proportion of sound tubers than the inside 
rows.” I have not found this invariably the case ; but admitting 
that such is generally the case, the outside rows have the advan¬ 
tage of more air and light, and when a patch of Potatoes is 
diseased and throwing off the spores of the fungus, the Potatoes 
on the outside rows are like an army which is protected on one 
flank by a morass—they can only be attacked on the other. “ The 
rows of Potatoes grown over a rubble drain gave sound tubers 
when the adjoining rows were nearly all diseased.” This can be 
readily accounted for by the greater dryness of the soil producing 
a healthier growth in the stems of the Potato, so that when 
