t'ebiaary l4,1&&5. 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
143 
The established Vine, to my mind, makes much of its growth 
by the aid of the food stored in the stems the previous season. 
Then the food taken up by the roots is mainly devoted to the 
development of the growth, and for filling the reserve organs with 
nutriment for the following season. 
Firm, well-matured wood, the reserve organs abundantly stored 
with food, the main foliage stout, clean, fully exposed to the sun, 
and retained until it naturally turns yellow or assumes other 
colours, with well-matured roots near the surface, are the essential 
conditions for insuring success, or in other words healthy Vines 
and excellent Grapes.—W. Bardney, Osmaston Manor. 
POTATOES. 
Whilst gardeners generally are almost driven to their wits’ end 
to keep up heat in forcing and greenhouses during the present 
intensely severe weather, it is feared that there are numbers of 
cases where less thought is bestowed on the safety of Potatoes 
both for consumption and seed. In how many cases are these 
stored where under ordinary conditions they are perfectly safe, 
but are not at all protected in such a way as to resist repeated 
frosts of such intense severity as from 20° to 30° ? It need hardly 
be said that the protection required in such cases usually exceeds 
not only what is held requisite, but what often can be afforded. 
Hence it will be no matter for surprise later to learn that in all 
directions seed tubers especially have been frosted and spoiled. 
Whatsoever may be the nature of the temperature when this is 
read, it is certain that advice to afford the tubers more protection 
will come far too late. The horse will have already been stolen. 
I have charge of a considerable quantity of seed Potatoes in 
numerous varieties. Most of them are in shallow boxes, and all of 
the later ones are safe in a cellar, where there is ample air in cir¬ 
culation, and a fairly equable temperature. Some others in larger 
quantities I have in hampers at the coolest part of my kitchen, 
chiefly Magnum Bonums, safe and keeping well, whilst early sorts 
in boxes that have already made growth are kept securely covered 
in a top room, where in open weather they can get abundance of 
light and air. As I have thus stored some five or six bushels in 
all, I mention it to show how possible it is with absolutely no 
outdoor appliances or room to house Potatoes safely during very 
hard weather, if to that end very special efforts be made. The 
possession of medium sized flat deal boxes in which Potatoes can 
be stored for winter preservation, is an advantage that cannot be 
over-estimated. Thousands of persons who may have a few bushels 
of seed stored in pits outdoors, or in heaps in sheds, or in large 
boxes or tubs or on shelves, and are in a condition of grave anxiety 
respecting the safety of their seed tubers, would, if they had them 
in such boxes as I have, and for lack of other room placed two or 
three deep even under the bed, would sleep far sounder at night in 
consequence than they do now. I shall expect to learn that 
farmers, market gardeners, and cottage gardener^ have suffered 
very heavily indeed, unless they have taken precautions far in 
excess of what are usually deemed sufficient. 
The disaster which happened to Potato breadths at the end of 
May last gave a warning that it would be folly to ignore. With¬ 
out doubt, breadths that had, as was so general, the tops cut to the 
ground had to suffer also an average tuber loss of fully one-third 
of the crop. That was a matter of such serious moment no one 
should fail to remember. I fear few will regard the warning any 
the more. No doubt there will soon be seen the same haste to 
plant, and to get the tender tops above ground some time before 
the season of late frost is over. To have specially early sorts thus 
early above ground is all very proper where some kind of protec¬ 
tion can be afforded, but to have the main crop breadth thus 
exposed to danger is, after previous experience, so manifestly 
unwise that those who do suffer loss have only themselves to blame. 
I venture to suggest, in view of a possible recurrence of such a 
disaster again this year, that general planting be deferred to the 
end of April, and if in the meantime the sets have been properly 
prepared by exposure to light and air in shallow boxes, they will at 
planting time be so far advanced in growth that practically they 
will be equal in precocity to other and similar sets that were 
planted some three or four weeks earlier. Long experience has 
satisfied me in respect to securing both early and abundant crops 
that the condition of the sets when planted has as much bearing 
upon the results as almost any other element in Potato cultiva¬ 
tion. As a matter of ordinary security, I would far sooner see 
Potato tops juH showing through the ground, if they be as they 
should be—stout and robust, on May 25th, than twenty days 
earlier. Of course, I except those very early sorts that can have 
some kind of protection afforded. I have no doubt, having regard 
to the prolonged intensity of the frost we are now experiencing, it 
will largely be concluded that the winter cold will have expended 
its forces, and that we shall have a comparatively safe mild spring. 
That is a more comforting than safe doctrine. It is best to take 
nothing for granted, and if there be any error at all in the later 
planting of Potatoes, and I cannot admit there is, then will it be 
an error on the safe side. 
I am often asked to state what new kinds of Potatoes there are 
being put into commerce. Really in connection with Potatoes we 
move very slowly now. There is a very narrow field open for 
improvement; as evidence of that we see comparatively few new 
varieties being put into commerce, a sign of undoubted wisdom 
on the part of the trade. There never will be again seed Potato 
booms. The day* of 2s. 6d. per lb. once paid are past; indeed, it 
is hard now to get 6d. per lb. for novelties, and they should be 
superlatively good to be worth so much. Unless I had before me 
the whole of the Potato lists in issue I could not state how many 
new sorts are being sent out, and even if I could I should still be 
haunted by the fear lest some of these should be mere seedling 
reproductions of old varieties. That not a few of the Magnum Bonum 
strain now so numerous are just that and no more is certain ; that 
even in such case they do bring to us some moderate access of 
strength and energy over others some time in commerce there can 
be no doubt. Still, I have always found that where tubers for such 
purposes be saved from the best kinds, and stored under proper 
conditions, that there is practically no loss of robustness of 
productiveness, even after many years of growth. 
We see very interesting seedling trials conducted every year at 
the Royal Horticultural Gardens, Chiswick, and as last year it 
usually happens that some half dozen sorts seem to exhibit very 
remarkable productiveness ; but then the value of the trials is 
much minimised because there is so little of available space for 
the growing also the older standard sorts for comparison, so that 
relative merits could be fairly tested. It does not follow that there 
may not be just a few each year that show some small advances. 
To find out such merits growers generally should purchase annually 
a few pounds’ weight of new kinds and test them, and specially 
so from own-saved seed a second year, as I have usually found 
that to be the best test trial after all. The initial outlay is small, 
and the result with Potatoes always profitable. 
It is most difficult to furnish a good selection suitable for all 
purposes and soils. It is so common for a variety which succeeds 
admirably in one place to be unsatisfactory in another. Still there 
are many varieties that are generally reliable. Thus as first earlies 
Ringleader and Laxton’s Early are good ; then come Early Puritan, 
Duke of Albany, Early Regent, Snowdrop ; and for later crops of 
white kidneys. Chancellor, The Bruce, Main Crop, Reading Giant, 
and Magnum Bonum are first-rate ; whilst of Rounds, Triumph, 
Supreme, Windsor Castle, Prime Minister, Quantity and Quality, 
and Sirius, are equally excellent.—A. D. 
WELCOME AND UNWELCOME GUESTS. 
In his interesting lecture at the Birmingham Gardeners’ Mutual 
Improvement Society last week (referred to on page 117) Mr. Wills 
designated as “ unwelcome ” guests such insects or animals as would 
attack the flower itself or abstract its nectar without assisting fertilisa¬ 
tion, and “ welcome ” guests those that assisted fertilisation. Of these, 
wingless or crouching animals are specially disadvantageous, because in 
passing from flower to flower they would generally steal the nectar, 
which is at once the inducement and the reward of those winged insects 
which are chiefly concerned in the processes of fertilisation, and would 
remove the pollen without transferring it in due order to the stigma ; 
also because, unlike those “ welcome” guests, they are rovers, not con¬ 
fining their visits to one species at a time. Of all those wingless creatures 
perhaps ants are the worst and most dangerous enemies. 
Mention was made as to the almost innumerable protective ap¬ 
pliances, corresponding to the endless variety of possible visitors, great 
or small, soft or hard, winged or wingless ; also that one flower is guarded 
by several distinct means, which fall into definite types of defence, 
either direct or indirect in their action, and of which such as hairs, 
prickles, and viscid secretions form a large proportion. Special reference 
was made to water as an impediment of access of insects and creeping 
animals to some flowers, as in some of the Bromeliads, Dipsacus, the 
alpine Gentians, and others ; whilst plants which grow in water, such as 
Water Lilies, Butomus, Sagittaria, and Alisma are absolutely protected, 
and for this reason the stems of these are freed from hairs, bristles, or 
opposing processes of any kind. 
In connection with this matter it was pointed out as a remarkable 
fact that at least one water plant—the common Polygonum amphibium, 
which, as its name implies, continues to live when the water is drained 
from around it—adapts itself to its new environment by developing, as 
soon as the necessity of protection has arisen, innumerable glandular 
hairs on the leaves and stem, from which a sticky substance is exuded, 
on which if a creeping insect steps he is at once effectually bird-limed. 
This plant will flourish for years on dried-up ground, but if this becomes 
