244 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ September 16, 1886. 
strong sun heat. When this latter is the case the house 
should be more heavily shaded, and be kept well damped bo;h 
between the pots and on the floor. The side lights should 
not be opened, but bottom ventilation is very beneficial when 
it can be applied under the staging by what are termed 
“ hit and miss ” ventilatorp. Whatever aspect the house has, 
shading must be applied so as to keep the sun from shining 
fiercely on the plants from early in March until about the 
commencement of October, and if the house has side lights 
the safest plan will be to tack on some tiffany or scrim the 
whole of the summer. 
The majority of Orchids amenable to “cool treatment” 
should never be allowed to suffer by the want of water, 
winter or summer, as they are never completely at rest, and 
to dry them off like a Dendrobe would be to court failure. The 
safest guide is to keep the sphagnum healthy and growing, 
and when this thrives the Orchids will do the same. We 
apply water just as the sphagnum commences to have a 
white tinge, and it is applied with a syringe, which is far 
handier for the purpose than a water-pot. 
The material used for potting is equal parts of growing 
sphagnum and very fibrous peat, with a good addition of 
charcoal and clean crocks broken to about the size of a hazel 
nut. The pots should be about three parts filled with cleanly 
washed crocks, the centre of the plant elevated about an inch 
above the rim of the pot, and the potting material be firmly 
packed about the roots. Orchids are now comparatively 
cheap, and it is generally the cheapest in the end to buy 
established plants from nurserymen who make a speciality 
of Orchids.— A. Young. 
I am glad to find by the remarks of Mr. J. MacDonald (page 
208 of the Journal) that my inquiry with regard to so-called 
cool Orchids has attracted attention. I should, however, like to 
explain that I was not referring to the treatment of Orchids with 
greenhouse plants, but in houses specially devoted to them. It is, 
I think, generally understood that orchidaceous plants, though not 
always requiring a high temperature, need more moisture and less 
air than the generality of greenhouse flowers, and careful shading. 
I append a selection from a list of Orchids which are said by one of 
the first nurserymen to be admirably suited for cool treatment, 
which, however, my experience does not confirm—Anguloa Clowesi, 
Cattleya marginata, Coelogyne cristata, Cymbidium eburneum, 
Cypripedium Harrisianum, C. Sedeni, C. venustum, Laslia anceps 
and autumnalis, Miltonia Morelliana and spectabilis, Odontoglossum 
grande and Insleayi, Oncidiums aurosum, crispum, curtum,dasytile, 
flexuosum, Forbesi, and praetextum ; Sophronitis grandiflora, and 
Zygopetalum Mackayi. All these I have found do better in the 
Cattleya house. 
To sum up, a distinction should be made between Orchids which 
will stand to flower in a cool house, and those which will grow and 
flourish there.—A Subscriber. 
PRUNING AND TRAINING VINES. 
The observations and experiences of “ Esperientia docet” at 
page 173 are, to my thinking, eminently seasonable and suggestive. 
Spur-growing and restricting the growths is not the way to get 
Grapes on weak Vines, and to prune vigorous ones c'osely is to 
prevent their bearing. The system your correspondent advances 
is as “oldas the hills;” known formerly as the rod system,there 
being both the long and short rod systems, and is certainly 
anterior to the spur system. In these days the rod system has 
lost its name, and is analogous with the resurrectioned one of 
“ extension,” which may mean anything or nothing, but under its 
proper term of rod is readily recognised by those having some 
few years’ experience of Grape cultivation. I can remember 
when there were as many Vines on the rod as on the spur system, 
and the finest and most successful of Grapes exhibited at the 
local shows, as well as those honoured with medals by the London 
Horticultural Society (R.H.S.), were those grown on the rod 
system. The idea of the rod system was that of securing fruit 
on the wood of the previous year not having borne fruit - that is, 
wood or a cane allowed to grow to a certain extent without 
hindrance or the burden of fruit, as is the case with the shoots 
of a young Vine pruned on the spur system. Instead of the 
annual growths being cut back to one or at most two eyes, as in 
the case of a spur growth, the whole of those on the rod system 
were leaders eventually shortened more or less according to the 
method adopted. 
1 have pruned Vines on the rod system, leaving about 15 inches 
for the short rod and 30 for the long rod, choosing the best eyes as 
ends nearest the length named. All the laterals or side growths 
fruited, or as many as were allowed to remain at disbudding, 
being cut away in the autumn or with the Grapes. This system 
gave some splendid bunches. There were no small, in fact, unless 
they were taken from shoots that arose from the lower part of 
the rods— i.e., of the annual length made ; besides some 
“thumpers” at the top as the leading shoot of each rod was 
allowed to fruit on the last length made, i have a clear reco'lec- 
tion of this long and short rod system ; indeed, have seen a cane 
taken from the bottom to the top of the rafter in a season, and from 
one end to the other of a long house in the same time, and allowed 
to carry fruit, a bunch from every other shoot on opposite sides 
of the rod the year following, twenty-two bunches on the upright 
and over forty on the horizontal. This was growing wood one 
year to fruit the next, and is the same now practised with Vines 
in pots, with the difference that we got a much stronger cane 
from the Vines planted out and established in a border than in 
pots. The bunches were big, loose, uneven in berry, and not 
very satisfactory in finish. The whites were the more satisfactory; 
they did not show the bad finish nearly as much as the black. 
They were liked at table when there were parties and for the 
exhibition, which was perhaps once a month in the first case and 
once a year in the other; but for everyday use the small bunches 
of three-quarters to 1 lb , tbe produce of Vines on the spur 
system, were most in request. The bunches on the spur system 
were twenty to twenty-four on a rod in a house of 18 feet width; 
on the rod system we had, perhaps, half a dozen “ thumpers,” 
weight for weight per Vine not materially different, but there 
was a great difference in usefulness. The small bunches compact, 
large in berry, and fine in colour and finish, were liked because 
fresh and good, and the big bunches were not liked because they 
were too much for once and not presentable a second time. 
It is with Grapes as with butter, which is liked best when 
in smaU lumps, even old butter looks most like fresh when made 
from the lump into pats. The rod system means big bunches, 
loose, coarse, and unserviceable; the spur system means medium¬ 
sized bunches, compact, stout in shank and footstalks, large 
even-sized berries, perfect in colour and bloom, with every other 
characteristic of high finish, and most serviceable in early, mid¬ 
season, and late, through their better keeping quality. Either 
system may be overdone. This is not, perhaps, what your cor¬ 
respondent alludes to in his observations on the unsatisfac¬ 
tory cropping of weak and gross-growing Vines, but 1 consider 
it has that tendency, extension meaning larger bunches and 
often badly finished fruit. Vines in a suitable border and house 
judiciously managed are, so far as 1 have seen and experienced, 
with few exceptions most satisfactorily treated on the spur 
system. Some Grapes are shy at fruiting where close pruning 
to the orthodox bud or a couple of eyes is practised; but they 
are rare when the Vines are sufficiently vigorous and the wood is 
thoroughly ripened. The most notable examples are in the large- 
bunched varieties such as Gros Guillaume; but even with these the 
most compact bunches and most perfect in finish are had from 
the eyes nearest the base, and the biggest, loosest, and coarsest 
the nearer they are the top of the previous year’s wood. Muscats 
a)so bear best from eyes some little distance from the base, and 
the like remarks might be further extended, but is the same in 
all cases—viz., the nearer the base the buds are left at pruning 
the more compact the bunches and better the finish of the Grapes, 
and the further the buds are from the base the more we increase 
the liability to looseness of bunch, to unevenness of berry, and 
uncertainty of finish. These are well-known axioms in Grape 
culture and I think they are, by the remarks of your correspon¬ 
dent, likely to be overlooked, quite unintentionally on his part, 
for it is perfectly clear his animus, if he have any, is not directed 
against the spur system so long as it affords satisfactory results, 
but against that apathy and inanition which discontent with 
things as they are does not result in efforts at improvement. 
As an example of the mode of training alluded to on page 
173, t may mention the Vines in the large conservatory at 
Chiswick. They seem to be trained on the rod and spur system 
combined, a sort of go between, neither the one nor the other 
particulaidy, but something of both. When a rod gets aged and 
gives too small bunches or too few on the spur system a young 
cane is trained in and the old rod displaced by the young, and it 
seems to be a continuous process—ie.,the training-in of young 
canes to displace old rods so that there is no lo3s of crop; in 
fact, it is taking time by the forelock, not waiting a disaster 
before taking remedial steps, but foreseeing increased diminution 
of crop in present weakness, promptly meeting it by increased 
