December 29, 1892. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
571 
fruit is set, be copiously supplied with liquid manure, yet it must only 
be given when the soil is moderately dry. Maintain a moist genial 
atmosphere by damping the paths two or three times a day, and 
occasionally with liquid manure, not too strong, or the ammonia 
volatilised may prove injurious instead of beneficial to the foliage. 
Houses to Afford Ripe Grapes in June. —These are the first in a 
majority of establishments, and are often planted with a medley of 
varieties, which cannot all have proper treatment. Black Hamburgh, 
Mill Hill Hamburgh, and Madresfield Court are good black varieties, 
and of white kinds White Frontignan, small, but esteemed for its rich 
flavour, forces well, Buckland Sweetwater, and Foster’s Seedling also 
answer well. The Vines should be planted inside the house and be con¬ 
fined to the inside border until it is occupied with roots, when they 
may be allowed to pass into the outside border. This must be covered 
with 3 inches thickness of dry leaves with a little long stable litter over 
them to prevent their blowing about. If the roots are entirely in an 
outside border it should have some fermenting materials—two parts 
leaves and one part stable litter—mixed, placed thereon, turning and 
adding to them from time to time so as not to allow the materials to 
become cold or a close soapy mass. If that cannot be done, it is better 
to cover the border with about 6 inches thickness of leaves and enough 
stable litter on them to keep them from displacement by wind, and 
reduce this covering in late A pril or early May to an ordinary mulch— 
enough to cover the surface about an inch. The house should be started 
at the new year, watering the inside border thoroughly with tepid water, 
but not over 90°, and when the soil has been brought into a moist con¬ 
dition an application of tepid liquid manure may be given to weakly 
Vines or those in borders of limited area. This will enrich the soil and 
become assimilated and available as food by the time the Vines burst 
into leaf. Damp the house and Vines two or three times a day in 
bright weather, but when dull once, or at most twice, say in the morning 
and early in the afternoon, will be sufficient. Maintain a temperature 
of 50° to 55° at night and on dull days, advancing to 65° from sun heat 
and a free circulation of air. 
Houses from which the Grapes have been Cut. —Pruning should be 
completed without delay, cut to a round bud as near the main stem as 
possible, shorten or cut away elongated spurs where there is others 
nearer the stem to supply fruit, or train up young canes to displace 
them. Remove loose bark carefully, not scraping into the quick or live 
bark, and thoroughly cleanse the house, washing the Vines with a 
solution of softsoap, 4 ozs. to a gallon of water, employing a brush, and 
reaching into every hole, angle, and crevice. Avoid strong soapy 
solutions, as they dry the bark and cause the Vines to break weakly—in 
fact, growth is not free until the substance is softened and removed by 
syringing the rods. Remove the loose surface soil, especially near the 
collar of the Vines, and supply fresh loam, with about one-third of 
earth-closet manure mixed with it, or decayed stable or preferably 
farmyard manure. If these are not forthcoming, add a 9-inch potful 
of bonemeal and double that quantity of wood ashes from hedge 
trimmings to every 3 bushels of loam, and if a 9-inch potful of blood, 
dried and ground, be added the mixture is one of the very best for top¬ 
dressing Vines. Loam seems to favour root formation, and it holds the 
other fertilising substances, so that the roots find abundance of nourish¬ 
ment when proper supplies of water are given during active growth. 
A couple of handfuls of the mixture, without the loam, sprinkled on 
each square yard of border and lightly pointed-in greatly aids the 
growth of the Vines. The house should be kept cool, but frost is best 
excluded. If used for plants the temperature ought not to exceed 40° 
to 45° by artificial means, and those plants only that require safety 
from frost should be placed in vineries when the Vines are at rest. If 
the house has a mean temperature of 50° the buds will be excited, and 
that is prejudicial to the after-growth. 
Late Houses. —Muscat of Alexandria and Canon Hall Muscat are 
extremely difficult to keep on the Vines after Christmas, which may be 
due to the fluctuations of temperature and variability of the atmo¬ 
spheric moisture, the principal difficulties being to keep the temperature 
even and prevent the deposition of moisture on the berries. This 
usually occurs after a cold period, the heat of the sun expanding the 
atmospheric moisture, and it is deposited on the cooler surfaces of the 
Grapes, which do not become warmed equally with atmospheric air. 
Some growers prefer to let the Grapes remain on the Vines. To keep 
the temperature equable and exclude fogs and damp cover the roof 
of the house with straw or similar material, keeping the house freely 
ventilated in mild weather and close and cold, with little more heat 
than is necessary to exclude frost. Grapes so kept weigh heavier than 
those that hang some time in a drier and warmer atmosphere, and 
Muscats so preserved command long prices, but the Grapes do not 
always keep well. For general purposes, Grapes are best kept after the 
new year in a Grape room, cool, dry, and as equable in temperature 
as possible, and the more wood they are cut with the better they keep. 
Place a lump or two of charcoal in each bottle before the end of the 
shoot is inserted in the rain water, and there is then a certainty that it 
will keep sweet up to June. Any dry room is suitable for keeping 
Grapes in bottles of rain water, provided the temperature is kept 
equable, or as near as may be at 40° to 45°. By cutting and bottling 
the Grapes the Vines are set free for pruning and cleansing the house. 
Alicante and Gros Colman, also Lady Downe’s, succeed well under the 
close-pruning system—that is, spurring to one or two buds, the bearing 
shoots being stout and short-jointed ; but Gros Guillaume and Mrs. 
Pince do best on the long-pruning system—that is, prune the shoots to a 
plump bud on well-ripened wood, as the small basal buds are seldom 
reliable, often pushing fruitless shoots. Muscat of Alexandria and 
Canon Hall Muscat also succeed best on the extension system, but 
sturdy, short-jointed, well-ripened, and not over-cropped shoots of these 
varieties generally show enough fruit when pruned to two buds, but 
when the buds are small and the growth weak or long-jointed, it is 
better to shorten the shoots to the first plump round bud from its base, 
always taking care to rely on those only on well-ripened wood. Where 
the Grapes cannot be cut for some time the mean temperature should be 
maintained at 45°, 5° less as a minimum, and 5° more as a maximum, 
admitting air constantly in mild weather, but keeping close when 
foggy and cold, but with a gentle warmth in the pipes to insure the air 
moving. 
THE KITCHEN GARDEN. 
Mushrooms. —The weather having, as a rule, kept very mild, there 
has been little or no necessity for resorting to fire heat in order to keep 
the beds in a productive state. In reality fire heat would, unless very 
sparingly applied, have done more harm than good, the heaviest crops 
of the most solid Mushrooms being produced in a temperature ranging 
from 50° to 55°, no harm whatever resulting by occasional drops to lower 
figures. Supposing some of the beds now require a little new life put 
into them, and those spawned late give no signs of moving, turn - j on 
fire heat is advisable. The old, dry, and apparently exhausted beds 
should have a gentle yet thorough soaking of warm water in which salt 
has been dissolved at the rate of about 1 oz. to the gallon. Against this 
may well be tried a light surfacing of Thomson s manure, this being 
washed in by warm soft water, or it may be dissolved in the water prior 
to using lit at the rate of 4 ozs. to a three-gallon can of water. Old 
mulching material should be cleared off the beds, and a thick covering 
of soft strawy litter substituted, this serving to keep the beds sufficiently 
moist without the necessity for frequently syringing over them. Let 
the late spawned beds start naturally. There ought to be plenty of 
moisture contained in them, and especially if fire heat has been with¬ 
held whenever the weather was mild. As many as three distinct crops 
can sometimes be had from beds not forced too hard, not overwateied, 
and not overrun by a destructive fungus which generates about old 
Mushroom stumps that cultivators have thoughtlessly left in the soil. 
Always scoop out the old stumps, and refill the holes thus formed with 
fresh fine loam. If there is room continue to form fresh beds, taking 
care to spawn these before the heat has declined much below 8o . 
Open Mushroom houses as soon as possible, especially waen the doors 
are facing a cold quarter. If the same pains were taken in excluding 
cold air as there is, though with less urgency, in excluding light, far 
better crops of Mushrooms would usually be obtained. It is the equable 
temperature and genial warmth of a cellar that best suits them, and 
these conditions should be imitated as much as possible. 
Open Air Beds. —Under good management there ought to have 
been extra good and almost continuous crops taken from these up to 
midwinter. If the beds have not done well they may yet produce heavy 
crops early in next spring, therefore do not neglect them. Heavy cold 
rains ought to have been carefully excluded, the two extremes, excessive 
dryness, consequent upon overheating, and saturation, being alike pre¬ 
judicial. Take advantage of a mild day and remove all the cold wet mulch¬ 
ing from the surface of the beds, and before covering with fresh litter 
take good note of the whereabouts of any clusters of Mushrooms there 
may be showing, in order that these may be gathered without greatly 
exposing other parts of the bed. Cover heavily with fresh strawy litter, 
a thickness of 18 inches not being too much, disposing and fastening 
it down in such a manner as to effectually exclude heavy rains as we 
as cold winds and frosts. 
Saladlngv —The Mushroom house in addition to being very suitable 
for forwarding Seakale and Rhubarb is also a good place for blanching 
Endive and Chicory. If a few dozens of Endive are every week or ten 
days transplanted to a bed of moist soil or even ashes, packing them 
closely together, they will blanch very effectively in about a fortnight, 
there being less waste when so blanched than by other methods. The pro¬ 
duce will not keep long after it is blanched. Strong roots of Chicory 
havin°'any green tops twisted off, and then either placed in pots or boxes 
of moist good soil, or bedded in some of the latter, will quickly produce 
quite a profusion of strong well blanched leaves, a few of waich add to 
the appearance and flavour of a mixed salad. A gentle heat is nov, 
required for Mustard and Cress. Sow every week in boxes and rather 
thickly on the surface of quite fresh rich soil. It will damp off badly 
unless the soil is completely changed every time. Keep uniformly moist 
and well darkened by either paper or mats till the stems are 1^ inch 
long, and then expose gradually to the light; also removing the boxes 
to rather less heat, commencing cutting directly the tops are green. 
Thus grown there will be a good length of blanched stems, this adding 
both to the appearance and quality of the salading. It has been 
possible to cut small hearts of Lettuces in the open up to the present 
time, but this late growth will be the means of greatly lessening the 
chances of the latest raised plants being of any service next spring. In 
anv case it is advisable to raise an early batch of either Golden Queen 
or Early Paris Market, both very superior Cabbage varieties, which 
force admirably. Sow the seed thinly in boxes or pans, placing these in 
gentle heat and not far from the glas3. Before the plants are far 
advanced in growth have a frame on a mild hotbed ready for their 
reception, a bed of soil not far from the glass m a two-light frame 
growing a remarkably fine lot of early Lettuce without very much pains 
being bestowed upon them. A frame should also be made ready for 
Radishes and Carrots when either are in early demand. 
