REMARKS ON COILING VINES. 
403 
aware that a rootless shoot could bear so strong a bottom heat as ninety 
or one hundred degrees, without suffering from such excitement; but the 
fact is conclusive, and therefore we have only to mark it as a newly- 
discovered property of the vine, with, which we were before entirely 
unacquainted. Mr. M. may rest assured that we have great pleasure 
in giving publicity to his statement; and though we reserve to our¬ 
selves the privilege of commenting on any matter offered to our notice, 
we most certainly will never endeavour to undervalue anything which 
promises improvement on the practice of gardening.— Ed.]] 
REMARKS ON THE EDITOR’S COMMENT ON COILING VINES, 
BY MR. ROBERT FISH. 
Sir, —In looking over the September number of the Horticultural 
Register, I was much gratified with reading your remarks upon the 
question “ Whether the successful or unsuccessful practices of garden¬ 
ing contribute most to the improvement of practical men,” and particu¬ 
larly that part in which you advert to professional periodicals as a 
means of exciting and promoting a spirit of inquiry, and in the pages of 
which due legitimate criticism will ever be sure of finding a place. 
Encouraged by these remarks, and also by the straight-forward manner in 
which you have acted in the various discussions in which you have been 
engaged, I venture to call your attention to another paper in the same 
number, respecting the coiling system of vine culture. In doing so, I 
beg to assure you, that, actuated as I have been by no feeling but the 
desire of establishing truth ; and that, being fully convinced of the 
propriety of my conduct in calling in question the utility of the coiling 
system as at first propounded; it is a matter of comparative indifference 
to me what opinion you may form of its utility, or of my conduct in 
doing what you term scouting the idea merely from the failure of a 
first trial.” But, Sir, I conceive it to be a matter of some importance 
to me, and of great importance to you, as the editor of a public journal, 
that the sentiments which you advocate respecting any system, should 
be those founded upon a knowledge of the facts connected with that 
system, and not upon premises of your own making, as I am convinced 
has been the case when, as the foundation of your remarks, you lay it 
down as a proposition, “ that the idea has been embraced by some of 
Mr. Mearns’ brethren and their masters, with much more confidence in 
its efficacy than ever it was intended it should have been by the inventor 
himself.” Opposed as this proposition is to what were my own and 
others’ ideas respecting the system, it is not more at variance with the 
