4 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
exhibitors of late, when his employers would allow him to show, is Mr. Meads, 
gardener to Raikes Currie, Esq , at Minley. I visited this place in the month 
ot September last, and was exceedingly pleased with the fine bunches and 
berries in every house, where a crop was still hanging. The Muscats in par¬ 
ticular were 4, 5, and 6 lbs., fresh and plump, and yellow as saffron. The 
situation of these houses is upon a barren moor. Of natural soil there is none, 
but the material taken out for the border space is a cold clayey gravel. There 
is no bottom heat used for these borders, and no covering except a little fern 
for the early house. But what struck me with most surprise, is the indifference 
shown to the borders. The houses form a range of lean-to’s, along the front of 
which where the border is, and running close up to the front plate, there is a 
broad gravel walk, and the whole of the inside of these houses is flagged all 
over. Now, if any situation required bottom heat to bring Grapes to perfection, 
it must be such a one as this. But if we take a large border with either a flow 
or return pipe in it, or a common flue at the level of the drains, and surrounded 
by rubble, we shall find that the heat does not circulate, either along the drains 
or rubble, but rises immediately through the soil above and carries the nutri¬ 
tive gases of the soil with it, thereby impoverishing the border of what the 
roots require to feed upon, and exhausting the portions immediately in contact 
with the influence of this heat. If the borders are inclined to be wet, either 
from the nature of the soil or from imperfect drainage, it will be found when 
heat is applied after a season’s rest, that the damp has accumulated in them, 
the influence of the heat is passed up into the soil in the shape of steam, and 
lodges at that point where the cold soil condenses it, and instead of drying 
the border makes it more spongy and wet. All our examples of very early 
Grape-forcing, as far as I know, have no artificial bottom heat, and on this 
subject we should like to have the experience of those who have tried it upon 
a large scale. My impression may be wrong that it sooner exhausts the natural 
properties of soil in outside borders; but we know it does so in small pits, and 
with pot Vines that are subjected to strong bottom heat. F. 
THE PROPER STOCKS EOR VINES. 
This is a subject that has of late been referred to by several writers in the 
horticultural press, who have given their own experience of the matter, and to 
whom I, for one, am much indebted, as I considered it of great importance 
that, by the evidence of facts, some just conclusion should be come to as to 
the stocks on which our high class but delicate Grapes will succeed best. I 
have inarched Vines on the Black Barbarossa, and found the Grapes deteriorated 
—Muscats would not ripen at all; on Lady Downes’, West’s St. Peter’s, and 
’White Muscat, without any improvement, though with no deterioration. On 
the Black Hamburgh I have only tried Snow’s Muscat Hamburgh; but so 
satisfied am I with the extraordinary improvement in this best of all Black 
Grapes, that I have this season inarched a number of young Black Hamburgh 
Vines with it. On its own roots this Grape forms ragged unshapely bunches, 
the berries swell unequally, and many of them shank and never ripen at all; 
whereas, on the Black Hamburgh stock I have had bunches 5 lbs. weight, 
berries equally swollen, and well coloured and finished in every respect. I 
would strongly advise some enterprising nurseryman to work a stock of plants 
of this Grape on the Black Hamburgh, for one day it must become a most 
popular Grape. It grows and ripens in the same house as the Hamburgh, and 
rivals the White Muscat for flavour. I have inarched the White and Grizzly 
