420 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. [May 24,1883. 
recognised it will receive due and just attention as a 
necessary prelude to the economical application of 
manures in gardens, orchards, fields, and parks.— 
Edward Luck hurst. 
IVY ON HOUSES. 
The advice given on the above subject by your esteemed 
correspondent Mr. E. Inglis is without doubt sound. The Ivy 
is a favourite plant here, and we have many varieties occupying 
various positions. We are sometimes asked this question, 
“ Does Ivy on house walls cause them to be damp or not ? ” 
The answer is, All depends upon the management of it. If Ivy 
be allowed to have its own way on the wall of a house it will 
in course of time find its way into the guttering, choking it, 
and sending the water from the roof down the wall behind the 
Ivy, the foliage of which excluding sun and air, the wall can 
hardly be otherwise than damp. But the blame is not due to 
the Ivy. If properly looked after as advised by Mr. Inglis, and 
kept strictly below the guttering, coping, or eaves (the gutter¬ 
ing being in good order), it will not only not make walls 
damp, but will act oppositely by drawing out any moisture 
there may be in, and materially preventing the rain from 
reaching the walls. 
Mr. Inglis’s remarks on cutting the Ivy reminded me of a 
circumstance which may perhaps be worth mentioning. About 
three years ago some workmen in making an addition to our 
cottage, the wall of which is covered with Ivy, completely 
severed two of the Ivy stems, each about the size of a man’s 
finger. Instead of the growths above the cuts dying as I ex¬ 
pected, they remained green and growing, being sustained only 
apparently by the rootlets adhering to the wall. This recalled 
to my mind a similar instance of an old plant, one of several 
covering an old barn in Oxfordshire more than twenty years 
ago, having its stems as thick as my wrist chopped through at 
about a foot from the ground, yet the plant grew pretty much 
as before. Putting together these two facts I began to imagine 
that an Ivy when well established on a wall could do as well 
without its ground roots as with them. How easy it is to be 
mistaken. Later on, during some repairs to a water pipe, 
another Ivy stem was cut through, and the growth above, 
though just as firmly attached to the wall as the others, soon 
withered and died. This led me to make a closer examination 
of the two stems first mentioned, and I soon found out all 
about it. The two cut stems were crossed above the cuts by 
two others, to which previous to the cutting they had become 
united—in fact had grown to them as though grafted by 
inarching ; so when the original supplies were cut off, they 
evidently at once commenced to draw from the source opened 
to them by their “ new connection.” And doubtless if I had 
the opportunity of examining now the old plants on the barn 
I should find a similar state of affairs. 
The Ivy is such an excellent plant in every respect, hardy, 
ornamental, easy to manage, not particular as to soil or situa¬ 
tion, that it may truly be called everybody’s plant; and though 
its varieties are now so numerous, from the Giant variety of 
Hedera algeriensis with leaves nearly a foot wide to II. 
glomerata, the little crumpled leaves of which measure less 
than 1 inch, there is not one can be called bad. 
Large and small-leaved varieties should not be planted very 
near together. A much better effect is produced by keeping 
them separate.— George Duffield, Winchrnore Hill. 
[That this is sound advice the diagrams of leaves sent testify 
conclusively, for one was 11 inches in diameter, and the other 
only seven-eighths of an inch.] 
DUKE OF BUCCLEUCII GRAPE—FOOTSTALKS 
DECAYING. 
Your correspondent’s experience with this grand Grape is 
not alone, as last year several of my bunches decayed at the 
stalk, as is indicated on page 416. With such experience 
perhaps it may be considered that I was somewhat inconsistent 
in recommending the Duke under certain conditions during 
the winter recess as the only white Grape that I would grow ; 
and, now upon seeing that it is desirable to allude to it, I shall 
dwell a little more on my troubles and triumphs. 
It will be six years this summer since, with a few others for 
inarching, I obtained a Vine of the Duke, but as it was not in 
a free state of growth I let it stand till the following season 
in the pot, though it made little progress. The next season 
whilst planting a second house I gave this Vine a good position, 
but it still refused to grow satisfactorily, until the. thought 
struck me that it might be of advantage to plant by its side a 
free grower, and then to inarch the two. Having by me some 
Waltham Cross I planted one each by the side of the Duke 
and by the side of a Buckland Sweetwater, and getting them 
united I was glad to see that success followed—the Duke break¬ 
ing into vigorous growth shortly afterwards. The next season, 
by an accident, the union was broken in the case of the Duke, 
but its vigour continued, whilst the Buckland still has the two 
sets of roots and is doing equally Avell. With both I had 
fruit; but two years ago my Dukes were so spotless and so 
very fine that the Grape became a great favourite with me, 
and such results, were they even much more difficult to 
achieve, are ample recompense for the care bestowed in 
culture. 
Last year the Vine was still more vigorous, and the bunches 
were of a size sufficient to attract the attention of a near 
neighbour, quite an equal lover of Mr. Thomson’s Grape ; but 
as my pleasures were checked troubles began. The bunches 
one after the other were dying, and the cause undoubtedly was 
the same as is again noticed. The stalks were gangrened, 
they commencing at one side to turn soft and pulpy ; speedily 
the whole stalk decayed, and the bunches fell off. Having 
some Amies’ manure standing near I thought it possible that it 
might contain some chemical compound that might be bene¬ 
ficial in this dilemma, so I rubbed it well into the affected 
parts of the bunches that were left. Whether it was that the 
disease was already exhausted I know not ; but certain it was 
that the decay went no further, and I have not seen it since, 
nor do I expect to see it now, as I think the Vine is past the 
stage it was last year when attacked. But with the disease 
stayed my troubles were far from being ended, as the bunches 
left were too light a crop for the Vine. They also contained 
many stoneless berries, and which still subjected the perfect 
berries there was in each bunch the more to crack. 
Some of your readers will possibly remember that I attribute 
more of the failures connected with Grape-growing to unripe 
wood than is generally attributed. This decaying of the berry 
stalks of the Duke I attribute to the wood being immatured the 
previous season ; and I am the more convinced of it now, the 
disease being unknown to Mr. Thomson, immatured wood, as 
we have further confirmed by his “ miles of piping,” having no 
part in this gentleman’s highly intelligent practice. 
My contention is, in proportion to vigour of growth we must 
have heat to ripen such growth, or failing in this the luxuriance 
we so much admire will end as too frequently does the healthy 
strong person who lives an indolent misspent life. My Duke 
of Buccleuch, by treating in the same plain, and, I trust, 
common-sense way in which I now treat all my Vines, had got 
into a state of growth quite out of proportion to my ripening 
appliances, and the Vine, like children of sickly parentage, was 
subject to a disease not previously recorded. To my having had 
nothing to unlearn ” probably is the more due my differing 
from several in their practice with the Vine, and I have hopes 
that the more gardeners practise thinking the more the future 
will bear me out that much that hitherto has been taught are 
fallacies and not sound practice. Many gardeners err in going 
“ the whole hog ” with their hobbies, never deigning to think 
that too much is poison, and, if not death, certainly disease to 
their Vines. 
My bunches of the Duke, with berries the size of common 
white peas, I see are 10 inches in length from the shoulder, 
which undoubtedly is quite the average ; and though I have 
more a dread of large foliage than a love for it, I enclose you 
a leaf of this year’s Gros Colman, one of a number of Vines 
that have carried crops that scores of gardeners have pre¬ 
dicted time after time they would never finish. But still 
again they “ come to time ” with the aid of my “ little feeds 
and often." They justify the labour of the “ forty watering 
