THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[ March, 
GG 
that I use my carnation-dressers for moving them about. Keep the seed-pots 
damp and close, and there will soon be a green crop of seedlings on them again 
—that is, if there has been plenty of seed to sow*. 
When I write again, the plants will be coming into bloom, and I wish instead 
of writing about it, I could have the pleasure of showing the living sight to patient 
readers who have taken an interest in these papers on a favourite plant. 
Poor Artemus Ward, when lecturing on his humorous panorama, used to say ^ 
to his audience, I wish you were nearer to it, so you could see it better.” “ I 
wish I could take it to your residences, and let you see it by daylight! Some of 
the greatest artists in London come with lanterns to look at it before daylight! 
They say they never saw anything like it before, and they hope they never shall 
again!” 
Few would say all that of a collection of Auriculas in full bloom. A’et 
I did overhear at the National Show one year a fair visitor exclaim, “ They may 
call these Auriculas curious, but they are not pretty I”—F. D. Hoener, Kirlchj- 
Malzeard^ Mipon. 
THE PITH OF VINES. 
® HAT good timber in grape-growing mostly results in fine fruit has passed 
almost into an axiom, and deservedly so. As to what constitutes good 
f timber among grape-vines there is also almost an unanimity of opinion. 
The wood must be hard and solid, almost as heart of oak or as horn. 
Size is of less moment, though when associated with hardness and solidity, size 
of wood is closely linked to largeness of bunch. 
It will be found on examination that the most uncertain factor in the 
wood of the vine is the pith. The pith is also, to a very large extent, the 
dominating factor. Is the pith good and compressed into small compass ? Then, as 
a rule, the wood is also good ; and fine fruit follows from good wood, almost as 
a matter of course, provided, however, that the treatment is fairly good also. 
If, then, it may be accepted as something like absolute truth, that as is the 
pith, so is the vine-wood, and the produce of the vine, it follows that the key to 
success in vine-culture may be hidden, as it were, in the pith. The question 
therefore is,—Can cultivators by any special treatment affect the size or deter¬ 
mine the quality of the pith in vines ? The question may, no doubt, be answered, 
at least in part, in the affirmative. An excess of water, food, or heat, for 
instance, may all add to the amount and lower the quality of the pith, pro¬ 
vided always, however, that the natural result of such excess is not neutralised 
or turned to good account by the abnormal activity of the vital functions, and the 
more intense influence of stronger light. Thus it is no easy matter to estimate 
beforehand what will form pith in excess or otherwise. Still, upon the whole, 
there can be no question that all so-called forcing treatment, such as leads to 
the production of gross growth^ is likely to end in an excess of pith. Too muclr 
pith is, no doubt, often the necessary product of the unequal balance between 
