324 
REMARKS ON THE GROWTH OF PLANTS. 
several houses where the vines were in excellent condition, and the 
borders very good, where the shanking rfiade terrible havoc, in spite of 
all the gardeners could do; I should say, from the strength of the 
vines, they were able to bear double the crop they had on them. I 
examined the houses, and was more than ever convinced the disease 
proceeded from what I have before stated. I will pledge my word, that 
with proper management, in a perfectly dry house, Mr. D. never saw 
shanking. That he may have seen withering, I have no doubt. His 
concluding remarks are excellent, and I hope will be more attended to 
in future: but if a gardener be troubled with a damp house, I feel 
assured, even if he attends in every iota to Mr. D.’s advice, he will 
still be troubled with shanking. 
Shanking in grapes is, in my opinion, want of action, produced by 
debility from over-heated, damp atmosphere, and takes effect on the 
extremities first, from their being farthest from the organs of nutrition. 
The human being would be acted upon in a similar way by remaining 
too long in a vapour bath. 
G. T. Dale, Manchester , 
July 10 th, 1836. (Late of Wirksworth , Derbyshire.) 
VARIOUS REMARKS ON THE GROWTH OF PLANTS. 
By the laws of nature, some plants are so constituted as to grow 
erect, others horizontally along the surface of the ground, and some 
again, having weak or laxive stems, either involve other bodies for 
support, or are furnished with prehensile members or tendrils, by 
which they climb and support themselves on other plants or bodies. 
In cultivating these different descriptions of plants, we generally take 
lessons from nature; we give poles to the hop, rods to the runner 
kidney-bean, sticks to peas, and treillage to the grape-vine. But some 
plants in cultivation are, by reason of their tropical origin and consti¬ 
tutional tenderness, unfit to bear the open air in this country, and 
therefore must be kept in close-glazed frames, and, notwithstanding 
they are climbing plants, no supporting props can be afforded; so 
that such imprisoned plants are compelled to be creepers instead of 
climbers. 
It will readily occur to every reader that the melon and cucumber 
are alluded to; and though these plants have been occasionally trained 
in houses as nature intends they should grow, it is but lately that it 
has been noticed and proved by one of the first horticulturists in the 
kingdom, that this position of the plant seems absolutely necessary for 
increasing the size of the fruit. 
