82 
THE FLORIST. 
mildew. In 1852, a few miles inland on the coast of Sussex, I was 
invited by a reverend gentleman to examine his outdoor Vines; they 
had been planted in a prepared border, against a south wall; the situa¬ 
tion was such as to lead one to say—if it is possible to cultivate the 
Vine in the open air, in England, this is the place ; instead of this, 
however, the Vines and the few bunches of Grapes on them were one 
mass of mildew. I had seen mildew in hothouses, and had stated the 
cause to be a contaminated atmosphere ; but in the open air I had not 
seen it. There was, however, no difficulty in stating the cause to be 
extreme dryness—the Vines required water. We had long had dry 
weather, not so long, however, as to affect anything materially in the 
open quarters ; but on and at the bottom of a south aspect, where eva¬ 
poration was so much more rapid, the equilibrium of heat and moisture 
had been upset. How often have we seen, in that neighbourhood, 
Peach-trees on a south aspect severely injured by mildew, at the same 
time when east and west aspects were in vigorous health, all from the 
same cause. In such cases, the watchful eye of experience is wanted 
to administer the proper quantity of water at the right time ; not only 
should water be given at the root and the leaves sprinkled, but the wall 
also should be well damped, at least until some better method of appli¬ 
cation is devised. These Vines had been several years planted, and 
this was the second year of their being attacked with mildew. I have 
every reason to believe that the cultivation was always the same, and 
the seasons of 1851 and 1852 were not much different from others that 
had preceded them ; but against this is the fact, that a young plant 
will bear a greater amount of drought without injury than one approach¬ 
ing maturity ; the composition of modern Vine-borders, too, . has 
undergone a great change, and that change, I believe, has only been 
beneficial in so far as a knowledge of principles and attention to minutire 
have gone with it. 
Let us take one other case of mildew. At a nobleman’s establishment 
in the north of England, this season, I witnessed a house of Grapes 
completely covered with the disease. If remedies had been applied, 
they had proved of no benefit, for a more complete case of Grape mil¬ 
dew it is scarcely possible to conceive. Here there was no modern 
border to blame—no new-fangled system of pruning or dressing ; my 
friend had pursued his usual method, which had always proved more 
or less successful for twenty years previous. The only innovation was 
the introduction of plants, and these and Vines I was assured would 
not do together. Pines he had often grown in the same situation, but 
they required much less water; and to the excess of water required by 
the plants was to be attributed the entire failure of his Grapes. With 
this opinion 1 could not agree ; my own Grape-houses were quite as 
full of plants as this was, and other circumstances not so favourable— 
still I had seen no mildew. I had to go from home and travel a little 
occasionally, to know what Vine-mildew really was. The root of the 
evil undoubtedly lay in the old Pine-bed ; for years it had lain undis¬ 
turbed, tan and soil mixed together in a solid undrained state, the 
evaporation from which was not healthful. Here there were no gases 
rising to give vigour and strength, but a sour, unkind moisture, increas¬ 
ing daily as the water given to the plants increased. 
