170 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
March 1,1894. 
have continued to grow all the winter in consequence of receiving 
nourishment from the necessary damping of the floors. 
Young plants should always be preferred to old ones, as they become 
established readily, and invariably grow more rapidly than those which 
have become root-bound. The plant ought to be given a good watering 
prior to its being turned out of the pot, after which a portion of the old 
soil should be removed, and the roots spread out evenly and thinly, 
covering them with compost to a depth of 6 or 8 inches. The syringe 
should at all times (with the exception of when the plants are in bloom) 
be used with a liberal hand, this operation being indispensable for the 
purpose of staying the ravages of the various insect pests.—G. Parrant. 
FORCING NARCISSUS TELAMONIUS PLENUS. 
Messrs. Collins Bros. & Gabriel cannot find one word of a 
misleading nature in my communication on page 88. I have never said 
that this Narcissus can be had in bloom during October or November, 
but I maintain that the treatment given to Homan Hyacinths will 
suit the plants well, and further, that they can be brought into bloom with 
the most gentle treatment at Christmas. When I wrote that it “ could 
be forced nearly as well and as early as the Roman Hyacinth,” I think I 
sufficiently qualified that statement by saying, “ What can be more 
useful and handsome than httween 400 and 500 of these flowers from a 
box 2 feet by about 16 it (h s during the early days of January ?” This 
is the time when Roman H .’acinths are plentiful and valuable. The im¬ 
pression left after readirg Messrs. Collins Bros. & Gabriel’s communica¬ 
tion, on page 107, was that the Daffodil blooms could not be produced 
by that date. Now, by their own showing they had blooms earlier still. 
Their last paragraph wants me to produce them two months earlier, 
which is an utter impossibility, unless the bulbs were purposely pre¬ 
pared. I do not think this an impossible task, but it would be an 
unnecessary one. We do not want Daffodils when we have abundance 
of Chrysanthemums, It is impossible to say over how long a period we 
shall have Chrysanthemums before many years are over. We had our 
first large b’ooms in July, and I find we have two large blooms still on 
plants in a cool house (February 24th). 
I could not think of accepting the challenge to send my box up to 
the R.H.S. even with the prospect of benefiting the Gardeners’ Orphan 
Fund. I have nowhere said there were 450 flowers. I said between 400 
and 500. The box might fall short by one, or it might have had more. 
My word on this point was disputed, and I think I made a very fair 
offer for anybody to come and count them. Mr. Collins (Messrs. Cut- 
bush & Son’s representative) saw the boxes I had retarding on the 15th 
or 16ih January, and if this catches his eye he will perhaps give you 
his own impression about them. 
I find the bulbs picked out of those I put in boxes and growing out¬ 
side have very few single blooms to a bulb ; the majority appear to have 
two and three. I have no doubt that 150 of these bulbs placed in a 
box would have yielded over 300 lAoeips. Let your readers secure good 
bulbs another year and pack them as thick together as they can in a 
box or boxes and note the result, and I venture to predict they will be 
highly pleased and not complain of the statement I made on page 88. 
One more word and I have done on this subject. When Messrs. 
Collins have a charge to level at me I shall be prepared to meet them 
without their levelling it at gardeners in a wholesale manner.— 
Wm. Babdney. 
A BENEFICIAL (?) FUNGUS ON GRAPES—SHANKING. 
The notice in the Jcnirnal of Horticulture^ January 11th, 1894, page 
30, of Mr. Arthur P. Hayne having found the fungus attacking the 
Grapes of the Rhine Valley to also infest the Grapes of California is very 
interesting. This, apart from the mould being ” essential to the produc* 
tion of the best Rhine wines of Johannisberg,” for it may occasionally 
be found on the bunch stems of Muscat of Alexandria Grapes, and not 
infrequently on shanked bunches of Alicante and Gros Colman in this 
country. Many growers would jump at a market for their shanked 
Grapes at £230 per ton = 2s. OJd. per lb. Unfortunately the fungus is 
not altogether a blessing, even in Germany, for it “ robs black or red 
Grapes of their colour and destroys the tannin,” that is, it turns early 
attacked Grapes very sour—the Grape sugar being converted into 
vinegar. The vinegar organism (Mycoderma aceti), however, is seldom 
found in early-shanked Grapes, being mainly confined to those which 
have undergone the vinous fermentation, and it has an aversion for 
very rich saccharine solutions or those containing over 10 per cent, of 
alcohol. Shanked Grapes are, of course, no use for wine-making, there¬ 
fore there is little prospect of a market for |this class of goods. If the 
fungus attacks the Grapes late—that is, after the juices have been con¬ 
verted into Grape sugar, “ it concentrates the sugar until it becomes 
impossible to make a dry wine.” It is extremely difficult to tell exactly 
what condition the mould requires to be in to render the Grapes in¬ 
fested worth £230 per ton, for it clearly is good for nothing on black 
Grapes, turns them red and destroys the tannin, and worse than worth¬ 
less on white Grapes by concentrating the sugar until it becomes impos¬ 
sible to make use of it. 
The fungus, how^ever, must have some influence on the wine made 
from Grapes infested with it, or it would not be recorded as a fact; 
therefore we have to consider in what ^form the mould is best fitted to 
effect the production of the best wines. This must be in the mould 
state and external of the Grapes, for if the mycelium of the fungus 
penetrates beneath the cuticle or skin of the stem of the bunch, foot¬ 
stalks of the berries, or Grapes, the parts infested speedily decay, leaving 
nothing but the woody tissue. The mould stage is not very common on 
Grapes, yet it may occasionally be met with on the bunch stem within 
the cluster ^vMuscat of Alexandria, this Grape having a singularly 
flbry or woody tissue, and the fungus cannot pierce the epiderm s when 
it is hard and dry. Nevertheless, a spore of the fungus alighting on any 
substance where there is a fair amount of a'r moisture will speedily 
push its germinal tubes and spread over the surface, forming a dark 
mould over the part, with knob-like growths springing somewhat 
sparingly from the mycelium. A colony of such on the bunch stem of 
Alicante Grapes is shown in fig. 27. A is the brownish septate flocci 
Mould on bunoli-stem of Alicante Grape Vine—Polyactis cinerea as an external 
saprophyte. 
(threads or mycelium) which is branched above, and to the naked eye 
has a black appearance, especially in the centre of the mass. The 
heads or terminal clusters of the hymenium (fructifying surface) are 
shown at B. It is this mould that is so valuable and I find uncommon, 
for though it may be freely produced on any surface where there is 
moisture, warmth, and a little nutrient matter, it is not often seen on 
Grapes as an epiphyte, and only on those with a hard impenetrable 
epidermis. 
Polyactis (Botrytis) cinerea, C and D, however, is a common fungus 
in this country, and found on most decayed herbs. It was formerly 
considered to be a mere saprophyte, a plant flourishing on dead or 
decaying vegetable remains, but experience has proved it to be a 
parasite, a plant deriving its food from living tissues; Of its latter 
proclivities we have abundant evidence in the Lily disease, also in its 
malignant effect on Artichokes, Beans, Clover, Roses, Snowdrops, and 
other bulbs, and on Vegetable Marrows, also on indoor plants, as 
Cucumbers, Melons, and Grapes. It is with regard to the latter that I 
desire to direct attention as respects this fungus. 
I would observe in the first place that the assertion of shanking being 
unknown in vineyards must be erroneous, for Polyactis cinerea robs 
the black Grapes of the Rhine valley of their colour, rendering such 
unfit for wine-making. What is this redness but shanking ? Then 
we have the testimony of Mr. Arthur P. Hayne that the self-same 
fungus attacks the Grapes of California. The point is this : the Rhine 
Valley is alluvial, and many Californian vineyards are of that forma¬ 
tion, and where Polyactis cinerea is most found on Grapes in this 
country is low-lying or flat districts. Shanking in Grapes is very 
decisive where the Vines are planted in deep, close, damp bordem, or 
in those made sodden and sour by the excessive additions or supplies of 
organic matter, the humus being disproportioned to the mineral 
constituents of the soil. The Vine is not a valley but a hillside tree. 
It prefers rock to mud, shattery, shinglely soil to stiff clay, and a 
gravelly, ferricalcite earth to a rich, deep, damp, alluvial deposit. I 
