THE VINE IN POTS. 
351 
suit good or bad, many would be saved from falling into error, and 
from incurring serious expenses. I potted my vines in a turf soil, 
got from a sheep pasture, which was very rich, free and light. I 
kept them in a vinery where the vines were trained to the rafters, 
and watered them with liquid manure of sheep droppings put in a 
large tub of soft water. In winter, I plunged them in saw-dust, to 
prevent the frost injuring the roots. In the middle of February, the 
pots being matted with roots, I put them in tubs, of fifteen inches 
diameter, and having placed them in the greenhouse till every eye 
was swelled ready to push into leaf, I then removed them to the 
vinery, in a heat of seventy degrees. Some of them bore from four 
to six weak bunches, the berries set in an irregular manner, and, 
when ripe, they were small in size, and insipid in flavour. I gave 
them a trial during the third and fourth season, but finding my suc¬ 
cess decline on every occasion I laid them aside, and relinquished all 
hopes of having good fruit from vines in pots. It is obvious that as 
the fruit matures the pots are filled with roots, and require to be wa¬ 
tered sometimes twice a day, in bright sun-shine, which spoils the 
flavour of the fruit and keeps the w r ood in a soft spongy state, for it 
never cuts solid and hard like well ripened wood. In pruning, the 
wood was full of heart, and there was a black tainted seam in the 
centre, caused no doubt by the application of so much water. M. D. 
must, therefore, recollect, if he build a house to cultivate vines in 
pots, to save the trouble and expense of making a border, that before 
two seasons elapse he will find, from the attention and trouble he 
will have in watering, that he is making a border every day all the 
season. The vine is a plant of free rambling growth, and it is as 
much against its nature to be confined in a pot, as for a man in 
sound reason to have a strait-jacket put upon him. 1 conceive it to 
be impossible for vines to produce fruit in the same perfection in 
pots as they will produce it in a vinery planted on a well prepared 
border. The vine differs in habit from almost any other fruit-tree. 
If the wood of a fig, orange, peach, apricot, plumb, pear, or any 
other tree be very luxuriate the tree is not so fruitful as those of the 
same sort which are of humbler growth. The case, however, is 
otherwise with the pines, for they require a very rich prepared bor¬ 
der, and the stronger the young wood is, the larger will be the 
bunches, and the berries will swell to a great size, if they be pro¬ 
perl v managed. 
Let me here give a brief account of my method of treating vines 
in a regular vinery. I lay no more young wood in than is wanted 
for fruit the next season, and when coming in bloom, I give little 
