282 
THE FLOEIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ Dechmbsbk, 
leave it as a ready-furnished vinery, to be for the future treated in a more rational 
way, and to build two more plant-houses in their stead. The result is as I have 
stated. The form of the vine, as will be imagined, is like a flow and return hot- 
water pipe, with a stop-valve between the two houses. It is planted at the 
stove end, and runs through 15 ft. length of stove, then through 25 ft. of green¬ 
house, thence returning to the end of the stove, and the new shoot of 1871 passing 
back into the greenhouse. About half of this I propose to leave this autumn, in 
order to carry on the extension system as far as I can. 
I would here observe that the above is one of the many instances we meet 
with which shows us how little we know, and how much unnecessary labour and 
expense we go to for want of knowing better. When I first came here, I made 
two vinery borders in the ordinary way, with good drainage, new soil, &c., and 
which for about twelve years have been yielding grapes without a failure, except in 
some cases a few shanked berries. As for mildew, such a thing was never seen 
till this summer, when all of a sudden we observed it in the early house. We 
applied sulphur freely on the pipes, and powdered the affected bunches; and though 
we lost some, we saved the most of them. I would ask such of your readers as 
may have been troubled with this pest, if we could have done anything better, 
and what effect it is likely to produce another season ? I notice this circumstance 
chiefly for the sake of returning to our pet vine, which, though only about 20 
yards off—on the poor rocky spot, in soil (if we may call it so) resembling in 
appearance broken-road metal mixed with half clay—is free from all the ills which 
a u vine is heir to,” although it has never had a particle of soil or manure be¬ 
yond a barrowful of soil to plant it in, and is in what we might consider the 
worst place we could find for it, viz., the north side of a span roof without a 
gutter, and thus receiving all the rain that falls, without a drain near it. The 
difference in these two cases is, I believe, only this, that before the kitchen 
garden was made, the stone had been quarried out and its place had been supplied 
with what we considered proper soil, while the part where the other vine was 
planted, being merely set apart for a framing-ground, did not require to have the 
rock got out, since it was never intended to grow grapes on it, the vine in question 
having been merely stuck in for a fancy. Whether this mildew is come to tell us 
that we may expect it still worse, or not, I cannot say; but my own opinion is this, 
that while the rock remained in its natural position, the various fissures in it permit¬ 
ted the water to pass away and left the soil above in a healthy state, and that had 
the vines been planted on it without any preparation the fibres would have taken 
possession of these fissures, which, while they would have supplied them with 
water, could not have retained it so as to injure them. But the rock being 
dug out, the natural drainage is done away with, and the soil which has been put 
in since is very likely to have stopped up every means of escape for the water, and 
to have become sour and unfit for the roots of the vines. It is therefore very 
likely that we shall get from bad to worse till we are obliged to start afresh. I 
