November 8, 1888. 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
429 
It has been highly amusing to note the conclusions at which your 
correspondents have arrived ; they evidently believe that the Grapes 
I grow are in a pitiable condition by scalding, for in Mr. Young’s 
last letter he advises me to alter my practice. At present I have no 
occasion to do so, and the illusory conclusion at which they have 
arrived may be removed when they are informed that during eleven 
years I do not think I have lost by scalding more berries than would 
amount to two good bunches, setting aside those subject to experiment, 
including this year, and although I have lost several berries I do not 
perceive one bunch that has been actually spoiled. 
Until I consider Mr. Combe’s letter I will leave the Grapes with 
which I am experimenting. It may be remembered by the observant 
readers of the Journal that I once ventured to think in a discussion on 
non-ventilating that early Grapes and Peaches could be grown as well 
without opening the ventilators as by doing so on the orthodox prin¬ 
ciple. This may be regarded as foreign to the subject of scalding, but 
such is not the case, for it bears very largely on that point that your 
correspondents are so anxious that I should clear up. I had tried the 
non-ventilating principle for Grapes and Peaches when I ventured to 
make that statement, but for the present I shall only allude to the 
Vines. The first season I tried it we commenced cutting on the 7th of 
May, and the season was a favourable one for this system of culture. 
Some young Vines were grown on the east side of the house (span- 
roofed) for fruiting the following season, and they made splendid wood 
and particularly large leathery foliage. These young Vines did 
remarkably well the following season, but the season was a very different 
one, much brighter and warmer, and not so favourable for carrying out 
non-ventilation with safety. All, however, went well until the stoning 
period, when the berries scalded badly. Slight shading has been tried 
during this critical period, and yet scalding took place. No harm 
occurred to the foliage or Grapes before or after the stoning period, and 
the temperature was as high by sun heat, and as moist before, and often 
higher afterwards. Condensed moisture was on the berries in the morn¬ 
ing on many occasions during stoning, before and after, but harm only 
was done during the time of stoning. The small globules of water 
disappeared from the berries as the temperature rose, and I concluded 
were absorbed by the atmosphere. Thus the conclusion that scalding 
might occur by the vapour being overheated and the Vines being over- 
forced at that particular time. 
For the present I will leave them to look at Mr. Youug’s last letter, 
for he says I have had my answer in his statement that it requires 
<! gross carelessness ” to scald the Black Hambugh. I have said before, 
that if this is the case it is equally so to scald the berries of Lady 
Downe’s. Mr. Riding jumps at the conditional admission I have made 
him as a strong point attained. The conditioni of admission is that it 
is “gross carelessness ” to scald Lady Downe’s. What do ypu gain ? 
Mr. Young asks me to carry out, however, in the last four lines of his 
letter to prove his point what I should regard as “ gross carelessness ” 
in the management of Lady Downe’s or any other Grape during the 
critical period of stoning. He wants me to bring about a condition I 
have repudiated more than once, and strikingly so in my last letter. I 
cannot perceive any treatment more calculated to scald Grapes. It is 
the results that follow such treatment that bring about the evil that I 
have been trying to warn cultivators to avoid. 
Mr. Riding tried to show that Mr. Simpson was wrong because he 
agreed with me that Black Hamburghs would scald, and he added parti¬ 
cularly in a cool house, or where very little fire heat was used. I fully 
agree with Mr. Simpson, and I should look for scalding under these 
conditions, because considerable moisture would be condensed on the 
foliage and berries at night, and the anxiety of the cultivator to take 
every advantage of the sun to hasten forward his crop would thus bring 
about the conditions Mr. Young wishes me to try, and the cause that 
scalded the berries on the Vines subjected to the non-ventilating prin¬ 
ciple as well as those experimented upon. 
I said on page 320 the condensation of vapours may be due to three 
causes—cooling, compression, and chemical affinity. I gave briefly 
condensation by the first, because 1 firmly believe that moisture on the 
berries is deposited more frequently by this means than any other. To 
avoid even this state of things I have twice advised the raising of the 
night temperature with the most liberal ventilation during the day. 
Although I think no harm results from moisture being condensed on the 
berries, I wished to direct cultivators to avoid at that critical period 
such a state of things as far as possible for fear of the evil consequences 
that might follow any mismanagement in ventilation. Although we 
have the Vines under artificial treatment, I do not see that the accepted 
law of condensation and evaporation need be upset. If we grow Vines 
without opening the ventilators condensation by compression takes 
place. The berries will stand this before and after the stoning period, 
■ but not while they are stoning without the berries scalding. My idea 
is, and what I intended to convey, by harm resulting from the artificial 
treatment to which Vines are subjected in my last, was negligence in 
not encouraging evaporation to go steadily on as the temperature in¬ 
creased. Heat being the agent of all evaporation, I believe the condi¬ 
tions of the atmosphere externally at the season of the year when Lady 
Downe’s is stoning to be highly favourable to promote rapid evapora¬ 
tion. The cultivator has also within his power the chance of changing 
quickly the atmosphere of the house. The quantity of vapour in the 
atmosphere externally at the time might favour or retard evaporation ; 
but, in most cases the former. At that season of the year, with careful 
management, the Grapes need not be subjected to a thorough “ sweat¬ 
ing ” after the temperature has commenced rising. 
I agree with Mr. Combe that a slightly drier atmosphere in the house 
is an advantage ; this, combined with the night temperature, I have 
advocated, and liberal ventilation from early morning until the tem¬ 
perature has declined sufficiently for closing would render Grapes safe 
against scalding. It is this condensed moisture that cannot be eva¬ 
porated from the berries that ends in scalding when the Grapes are 
grown without ventilation. This was the means by which I succeeded 
in scalding Grapes. It is not necessary to keep the berries subjected to 
such artificial treatment for any great length of time each day to ac¬ 
complish this thoroughly. I have observed even early in the season 
when the atmosphere has been changed by the admission of air that the 
moisture deposited on the berries soon disappeared and they became 
dry as far as I was able to detect. 
This “ sweating ” system does not injure the leaves or the berries 
before or after stoning ; in fact, the foliage does not suffer during 
stoning while the berries scald. I am therefore willing to admit that if 
the berries “ stewed ” as I stated they would be equally liable to do so 
in any stage, the foliage as well. Cucumbers grown on the non-venti¬ 
lating system are covered the whole day through with moisture, and I 
have often seen it drop off them. During the hot weather of last July 
what was formerly the stove here had Cucumbers in it, and when the 
door was opened vapour could be seen rushing out like a cloud of smoke. 
At times the house was quite misty from the amount of vapour in the 
atmosphere, and yet the foliage and Cucumbers took no harm. The 
fruit was certainly much lighter in colour than those grown under more 
natural conditions. Let the atmosphere once become dry, if only for a 
very short time, and the foliage will not be long before it is scorched. 
The temperature rising by sun heat while the house is closed cause 
condensation to take place in consequence of the pressure of the atmo¬ 
sphere ; the moisture on the berries becoming heated through slow 
evaporation is not to my mind the sole cause of scalding. This, com¬ 
bined with the conditions that bring about this state of things prove 
too forcing for the Vines at that particular time. If not, perhaps Mr. 
Combe or somebody else can explain why Grapes are an exception in 
this respect. 
Now for the syringing. Why did I qualify the statement by saying 
“ I do not believe in such a practice, because it is liable to injure the 
bloom ?” For this simple reason, because I have always succeeded in 
keeping down red spider without following any such plan, but more 
particularly because the water that has to be used in many gardens is of 
such a nature that it would leave a deposit on the berries and spoil 
their appearance. I could not recommend the practice generally, 
because I know the water is of such a nature that, while one might do 
it with safety, a score ot more might and would spot the berries. The 
Grapes I saw, and to which I alluded, were perfect enough as regards 
the bloom, and I did not observe that any of them were spotted.— 
Wm. Baedney. 
CULTIVATION OF THE PEAR ON WALLS. 
[Read by Mr. A. Pettigrew at a meeting of the Young Men’s Improvement Society in 
the Castle Hardens, Cardiff.] 
The Pear can be had, by proper selection of varieties, in good 
condition for dessert for eight months in the year. The tree will 
grow in almost any kind of soil, but it attains the greatest perfection 
in a deep rich well-drained loam, and if other conditions are favour¬ 
able, it will continue to be fruitful and in vigorous health for fifty 
years or more if properly attended to. Standard trees growing in 
open quarters live to a much greater age than wall trees, and continue 
to bear good crops for nearly 200 years ; but the fruit, as a rule, is 
not so good in quality, nor the crops so certain, as those from wall 
trees. 
The best situation for the Pear is one having a south aspect. 
If the soil is inclined to be wet it must be thoroughly drained, 
and if exposed to storms, it may be sheltered by means of planta¬ 
tions at some little distance off. In making wall borders they 
should be as wide as the wall is high ; they may be broader or 
narrower according to circumstances, but, as a rule, they should 
never be less than the height of the wall, and 3 feet in depth. 
Pears can be grown successfully on south, east, west, and north 
walls (by a proper selection of varieties) but not on a north aspect 
in the north of England, nor in Scotland, where the climate is too 
cold and damp for them. 
Plant the choicer varieties in the south, and the early varieties 
in north aspects, but by planting a few early varieties in the south, 
east, and west aspects, the season of the particular varieties thus 
planted will be prolonged by those growing in the north, which 
will ripen much later than the others planted in the aspects 
mentioned. , , 
The south, east, and west aspects are good, and may be planted 
with the best varieties, and the late keepers which take a long time 
to ripen after the fruit is gathered and stored. For example, the 
walls in the garden here are covered with two or more of the 
following varieties, and the trees, with the crops they bear annually, 
will compare favourably with trees of the same varieties growing in 
any garden in the country. 
Trees on south aspect—Beurre Diel, General Todleben, Ber- 
gamotte Esperen, Marie Louise, Beurre Bose, GlouMorccau, Beune 
